In Palestinian cases, several elements prevent the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless persons (CGRS) from taking a decision within the initial six-month period after receiving the application for international protection. The CGRS commits to ensuring that Palestinian cases are processed more quickly and that a decision can be taken within 21 months of the submission of the application for protection.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: application for international protection, Palestinian, processing time
The Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration announced that applications for international protection from people from safe countries of origin have been processed in 12 working days and those from people originating from countries for which a low rate of protection is granted in 39 days, since 1 February 2024. This aims to free up places in the reception network for those who actually need protection.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: application for international protection, accelerated procedure
On the proposal of Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib and Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor, the Council of Ministers approved a draft royal decree establishing the list of safe countries of origin, now including Moldova.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: list of safe countries of origin, moldova
On 18 March 2024, the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGVS) and the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) co-organized a conference during which participants reiterated the need for greater convergence between Member States to achieve a fair and efficient asylum system.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: convergence, asylum practices, Common European Asylum System, New Pact on Migration and Asylum
In a judgement released today in case C-222/22, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that the Qualification Directive does not permit a presumption that any subsequent application based on circumstances which the applicant has created by his or her own decision since leaving the country of origin stems from abusive intent and abuse of the procedure for the grant of international protection. Any subsequent application must be assessed on an individual basis.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: qualification directive, subsequent application, refugee, abusive intent, religious conversion
The Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) announced today that it would resume the processing of Sudanese cases from Darfur, Kordofan, Blue Nile and Khartoum as of 26 February 2024.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: Sudan, application for international protection, individual need for protection
In 2023, 287 refugees were resettled in Belgium, including 154 Congolese from Rwanda, 81 Syrians from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, and 26 Sudanese, 18 Ethiopians and 8 Eritreans from Egypt.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: resettled refugee, resettlement, community sponsorship
The Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration announced today that applications from nationalities that have very little chance of obtaining international protection, in particular Congolese, Moldovans and Georgians, will be processed in a fast-track procedure from 1 February.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: accelerated procedure, fast-track procedure, application for international protection
In a press release published today, the UN Refugee Agency called on Belgium and Hungary to use their 2024 European Union (EU) Presidencies as an opportunity to finalize the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and to ensure its protection-sensitive implementation.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: Belgian Presidency, Hungarian Presidency, Council of the European Union
While in the past, Somali applicants from southern and central Somalia, with the exception of Mogadishu, were generally granted subsidiary protection status because of the security situation, the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGVS) now concludes that no region in Somalia is characterized by an exceptional situation in which the degree of indiscriminate violence is so high that it reaches the "real risk" threshold leading per se to the granting of subsidiary protection.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: Somalia
In a press release published today, the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGVS) announced that it would unblock the suspended cases of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and start again to process all Palestinian cases.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: Gaza, West Bank, refugee status, subsidiary protection status
At the Global Refugee Forum this week in Geneva, EU Member States announced their collective pledge for 2024 - 2025: 61.000 new places combined for resettlement and humanitarian admission for people in need of international protection. Of these, 31.000 are for resettlement, to be implemented in close cooperation with UNHCR, and 30.000 are for humanitarian admission.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: resettlement, humanitarian admission
Myria has published the sixth thematic section of its 2023 annual report. This section entitled "International protection" reports that the refusal rate for asylum seekers from Afghanistan in 2022 is higher in Belgium (56%) than the average for EU countries (47%). In the event of return, some Afghan asylum seekers could risk degrading or even inhuman treatment (prohibited by Article 3 of the ECHR), given the current situation in Afghanistan.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: Afghanistan, refusal rate, inhuman or degrading treatment
The European Commission is presenting today a set of good practices to help Member States implement in the most effective way the actions to which they have committed under the Dublin Roadmap.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: Dublin Regulation, Dublin Roadmap, Dublin transfer
The Court of Justice of the European Union has released two judgements today, respectively in Case C‑374/22 and in Case C‑614/22, where specific provisions of Directive 2011/95/EU must be interpreted as not requiring the Member States to grant the parent of a child who has refugee status in a Member State the right to international protection in that Member State.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: derived right to international protection, parent, family unity
The Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGVS) announced on 20 October 2023 that the notification of decisions granting or refusing subsidiary protection status to applicants from Gaza and the West Bank is suspended until the CGRS has sufficient objective information to assess the security situation in the Palestinian territories accurately.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: Gaza, West Bank, refugee status, subsidiary protection status
Since 2013, Belgium has already resettled more than 4,500 refugees. To celebrate the importance of the program, Fedasil organised today an event bringing together key national and international partners such as the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons, UNHCR, IOM, Foreign Affairs, the Immigration Office and Caritas International.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: resettlement
The European Migration Network (EMN) Glossary is an essential resource, which offers an EU-wide multidisciplinary vocabulary of approximately 500 terms and concepts related to asylum and migration. Let's focus today on the term "temporary protection" to make sure we have a common understanding and use of the term!
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: temporary protection, Temporary Protection Directive
The list of safe countries of origin, which is revised once a year, was updated on 7 April 2023 and is now published in Belgium’s Official Journal. At present, the following countries are considered as safe countries of origin: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, and India.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: list of safe countries of origin
In its judgments in cases C-8/22, C-663/21 and C-402/22, the Court clarified the conditions for revoking or refusing refugee status with regard to a third-country national who is convicted of a crime. The individual concerned must, inter alia, constitute a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society and the decision must observe the principle of proportionality.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: refugee status, revocation, refusal
The European Migration Network (EMN) Glossary is an essential resource, which offers an EU-wide multidisciplinary vocabulary of approximately 500 terms and concepts related to asylum and migration. Let's focus today on the term "resettlement" to make sure we have a common understanding and use of the term!
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: resettlement
The State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor has appointed Sophie Van Balberghe as the new Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS). The Council of Ministers approved her appointment today.
Main Theme: International Protection
During the High Level Forum to protection and resettlement cooperation, 16 EU Member States pledged more than 29.000 places for resettlement and humanitarian admission for 2023, including continued and expanded support to Afghans in need of protection.
Main Theme: International Protection
Keywords: resettlement, labour mobility
The annual report contains a complete overview of the asylum figures of 2020. It also focuses on the impact of COVID-19, on the functioning of the CGRS and on the international asylum context.
The annual report is available in Dutch and French in an online version and in PDF format.
Main Theme: International Protection
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, personal interviews of applicants for international protection at the CGRS were stopped in March. They were started again in June. To improve the safety of staff and applicants, a video with practical instructions was created.