In his opinion delivered on Thursday 26 June (joined cases C-50/24 and C-56/24), Advocate General Nicholas Emiliou of the Court of Justice of the European Union found that Belgium was in the right, at the end of 2023, to apply the border procedure to seven third-country nationals who arrived in the country via Brussels Airport and applied for protection.
Each had been refused entry to Belgium and had been detained in a centre considered to be “at the border”, even though it was inside the country. After four weeks, they continued to be held in detention on the basis of a new decision.
The Court was asked whether the procedure was compatible with Article 43 of the Directive on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection.
The Advocate General notes that this article does not preclude the examination, in the context of border proceedings, of an application for protection submitted at the border or in a transit zone where the applicant is held in detention in a centre geographically located within the territory.
And EU law “does not preclude a practice which essentially consists of keeping in detention, beyond a period of four weeks, an applicant whose application was initially the subject of a border procedure, in a physically identical place, on the basis of a different reason for detention”.
“Requiring detention to take place in a place geographically located at the border or in a transit zone would run the risk of compromising” the objective of the procedure, which is to carry out an initial screening of asylum applications, concluded Advocate General Emiliou.
Further information: https://aeur.eu/f/hl4 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)