Germany does not have to automatically recognize people seeking protection as refugees, even if they have already been granted refugee status in another EU country. This was recently decided by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg, as announced in a press release.
The decision concerned the case of a Syrian woman who had been recognized as a refugee in Greece and then also applied for asylum in Germany. A German court ruled that she could not return to Greece because she was threatened with inhuman or degrading treatment there. However, the German authorities did not recognize her as a refugee, but only granted her subsidiary protection, which is less extensive than refugee status. The person concerned then brought an action before the German courts against the refusal to grant her refugee status. The Federal Administrative Court referred the case to the ECJ to clarify whether the German authorities were obliged to recognize the woman as a refugee because another EU country had already done so.
In its ruling, the ECJ stated that EU member states are not obliged to automatically recognize decisions on the granting of refugee status issued by another member state. The German authorities must now carry out a new individual, complete and updated examination of the conditions for granting refugee status. As part of this examination, however, this authority must take full account of the decision of the other Member State to grant international protection to this applicant and the evidence on which this decision is based. To this end, it must immediately initiate an exchange of information with the authority that issued this decision.
Since 2020, around 76,000 people who were granted asylum protection in Greece have applied for asylum in Germany. The main countries of origin of these people are Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. This was reported by the press office of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) at the request of tuenews INTERNATIONAL. Around 65,000 of these applications have been decided since 2022. This means that around 12,300 people have been recognized as refugees, 26,200 have been granted subsidiary protection, 14,500 have been banned from deportation and 8,500 have been rejected. The remaining applications had been dealt with elsewhere (as of May 2024).
To the press release of the ECJ:
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-06/cp240102de.pdf
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Beflaggung vor dem Tübinger Regierungspräsidium. Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL / Martin Klaus.
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