Council of Europe Committee of Ministers urges Belgium to resolve reception crisis
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe examined the execution of the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Camara v. Belgium. The case highlighted a systemic failure to enforce judicial decisions ordering the State to provide accommodation and material support to asylum-seekers. While some progress has been made in freeing up reception places and improving operational support, concerns persist over reductions in capacity and the risk to the rule of law. The Committee urged the Belgian authorities to adopt sustainable measures and provide detailed information on enforcement.
At its 1537th meeting on 15–17 September 2025, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, acting through its Ministers' Deputies, reviewed Belgium’s implementation of the Camara judgment. The case concerned the refusal of Belgian authorities to comply with a 22 July 2022 order by the French-speaking Labour Tribunal of Brussels, requiring accommodation and material support for an asylum-seeker. The European Court of Human Rights noted a systemic failure to enforce judicial decisions, deeming it incompatible with the rule of law, and called on the State to take appropriate measures under Article 46 of the Convention.
The Deputies welcomed a number of improvements reported by the authorities. These included an acceleration in exits from the reception network, which freed up over 4.600 places between mid-2024 and April 2025; a sharp reduction in the Fedasil waiting list from around 4.000 in June 2024 to 1.814 in July 2025; strengthened operational support from the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) to reduce the backlog of asylum applications; and the temporary creation of additional reception places and accelerated procedures to manage the flow of asylum-seekers.
At the same time, the Deputies expressed concern over the steady reduction in the number of reception places since the end of 2024, while in many cases, the authorities are unable to grant asylum seekers the reception to which they are entitled, and the number of applications for protection and their average processing time remain high. They also noted with concern, in this context, the effects of other planned measures, in particular, major cuts in the federal budget for the reception of asylum-seekers and in the long-term capacity of the reception network, as well as the envisaged abolition of legal solutions that could address the ongoing crisis since summer 2021.
The Deputies invited the Belgian authorities to use, as soon as possible, all possible means—including additional reception places, the planned EUAA containers, emergency reception organised by Fedasil, or financial aid—to find a lasting solution to the reception crisis, so as to be able to enforce enforce all judicial decisions, and to provide a sufficient budget and a precise timetable for this purpose.
For further details, please read the Camara review and the decisions of the deputies.