In a landmark 2022 case, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Belgium had violated international law by failing to provide accommodation and material assistance to Abdoulaye Camara, a Guinean national who arrived in the country that year. Abdoulaye Camara was provided with accommodation on 2 November 2022 but the case revealed "a systemic failure on the part of the Belgian authorities to enforce final judicial decisions concerning the reception of applicants for international protection". 

On 19 September 2024, the Council of Europe noted with interest the measures taken and planned to address the above-mentioned systemic problem but stressed that these measures were insufficient in view of the ongoing crisis, its humanitarian nature and its impact on the European Court and the Brussels courts. The Council of Europe called on the authorities to "act as soon as possible", to increase their efforts as in 2015, to "use all the means at their disposal" and to adopt a sufficient budget and a timetable specifying the next steps in order to achieve compliance with their commitment.

More specifically, the Belgian authorities were invited "to increase, as quickly as possible, and in a significant and sustainable manner, the capacity of their reception network to resolve the current crisis". They were encouraged to "strengthen their cooperation with the European Union Agency for Asylum, considering extending its support to address the backlog of asylum applications" and to "foresee other measures such as emergency reception and/or the granting of financial assistance, as well as to evaluate the measures adopted and to monitor the execution of all judicial decisions relating to reception.

Following the above-mentioned statement, Myria and the Federal Institute for Human Rights noted that "the Belgian government lacks the political will to resolve this humanitarian crisis" and have particularly emphasised three points: (i) the increase in reception capacity is clearly insufficient, considering that 1.765 places were created between July 2023 and June 2024 while 15.000 places had been created in just one year during the reception crisis in 2014-2015, (ii) certain measures provided for by the reception law in the event of network saturation are deliberately neglected and (iii) some exceptional support measures and good practices taken for the reception of people fleeing Ukraine in 2022 have not been applied to the current crisis. 

For further information, please read the statement of the Council of Europe of 19 September 2024 and the press release from Myria of 20 September 2024 (in French or in Dutch).