Case C‑753/22

QY

v

Bundesrepublik Deutschland

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Bundesverwaltungsgericht)

Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 18 June 2024

(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Area of freedom, security and justice – Common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection – Directive 2013/32/EU – Article 33(2)(a) – No possibility for the authorities of a Member State to reject an application for asylum as inadmissible on the ground that refugee status was previously granted in another Member State – Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment in that other Member State – Examination by those authorities of that application for asylum despite the granting of refugee status in that other Member State – Directive 2011/95/EU – Article 4 – Individual examination)

Border controls, asylum and immigration – Asylum policy – Refugee status or subsidiary protection status – Directive 2011/95 – Procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection – Directive 2013/32 – Procedure for examining an application for international protection – Grant of international protection in a Member State – Application for protection in another Member State – Risk of inhuman or degrading treatment – No possibility for that other Member State to declare that application inadmissible – No obligation automatically to recognise the decision to grant international protection – New individual, full and up-to-date examination of that application – Scope

(Art. 4(3) TEU; Art. 78(1) and (2) TFEU; Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 4; European Parliament and Council Regulation No 604/2013, Art. 3(1); European Parliament and Council Directives 2011/95, Arts 3, 4(1) and (3), 13 and 36, and 2013/32, Arts 5, 10(2) and (3), 33(1) and (2)(a) and 49)

(see paragraphs 57-59, 68, 71-80, operative part)

Résumé

In a reference for a preliminary ruling from the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court, Germany), the Court of Justice, sitting as the Grand Chamber, rules on whether the authorities of a Member State must carry out a new examination of an application for asylum despite the grant of refugee status in another Member State, where they cannot exercise the option provided by Directive 2013/32 ( 1 ) to reject that application as inadmissible.

QY, a Syrian national who was granted refugee status in Greece in 2018, made an application for international protection in Germany. Subsequently, a German administrative court considered that QY faced, in Greece, a serious risk of suffering inhuman or degrading treatment, within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’), with the result that she could not return there.

In October 2019, a competent German authority rejected QY’s application for refugee status, but granted her subsidiary protection. QY brought an action against that decision, which was dismissed by the German administrative court seised on the ground that QY was not at risk of persecution in Syria. QY then brought an appeal before the referring court, claiming that the competent German authority was bound by the Greek authorities’ recognition of refugee status.

The referring court states that, in the present case, QY’s application for international protection could not be declared inadmissible on the ground that that status had been previously granted in Greece, since QY runs a serious risk of facing, in that Member State, inhuman or degrading treatment, within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter. In those circumstances, it asks, in essence, whether, under EU law, the competent German authority was entitled to assess the merits of that application for international protection, without being bound by the fact that Greece has already granted QY such protection.

Findings of the Court

In the first place, the Court observes that Article 78(2)(a) TFEU provides that the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union are to adopt measures for a Common European Asylum System comprising ‘a uniform status of asylum for nationals of third countries, valid throughout the Union’. Although that provision thus provides a legal basis for the adoption of EU acts containing such a uniform status, the fact remains that intervention by the EU legislature is necessary in order to give concrete effect to all the rights pertaining to that status which, granted by a Member State and recognised by all the others, is valid throughout the European Union.

The EU legislature has not yet fully achieved the objective pursued by Article 78(2)(a) TFEU, namely a uniform status of asylum. In particular, it has not, at this stage, established a principle that Member States are obliged to recognise automatically the decisions granting refugee status that have been adopted by another Member State, nor has it specified the detailed arrangements for implementing such a principle. Although the Member States are thus, as EU law currently stands, free to make recognition of all of the rights relating to refugee status on their territory subject to the adoption, by their competent authorities, of a new decision granting that status, it is open to them to provide for automatic recognition of such decisions adopted by another Member State, by way of a more favourable provision. ( 2 ) However, it is common ground that Germany has not exercised that option.

In those circumstances, the Court determines, in the second place, the scope of the examination, by the competent authority of a Member State, of an application for international protection made by an applicant to whom another Member State has already granted refugee status.

In that context, it finds that where it is not possible for the competent authority of a Member State to declare inadmissible, under Article 33(2)(a) of Directive 2013/32, an application for international protection made by an applicant, to whom another Member State has already granted such protection, on account of a serious risk that that applicant will be subjected, in that other Member State, to inhuman or degrading treatment, within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter, that authority must carry out a new, individual, full and up-to-date examination of that application in a new international protection procedure conducted in accordance with Directives 2011/95 and 2013/32. If the applicant qualifies as a refugee in accordance with Chapters II and III of Directive 2011/95, that authority must grant him or her refugee status, and it does not have any discretion.

In that regard, although that authority is not required to grant refugee status to that applicant on the sole ground that that status was previously granted to him or her by decision of another Member State, it must nevertheless take full account of that decision and of the elements supporting it. The Common European Asylum System, which includes common criteria for the identification of persons genuinely in need of international protection, is based on the principle of mutual trust, ( 3 ) in accordance with which it must be presumed, save in exceptional circumstances, that the treatment of applicants for international protection in each Member State complies with the requirements of EU law, including those of the Charter, the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, ( 4 ) and the European Convention on Human Rights. ( 5 )

Furthermore, having regard to the principle of sincere cooperation ( 6 ) and in order to ensure, as far as possible, the consistency of the decisions taken by the competent authorities of two Member States, on the need for international protection of the same third-country national or stateless person, it must be held that the competent authority of the Member State called upon to decide on the new application must, as soon as possible, initiate an exchange of information with the competent authority of the Member State which previously granted refugee status to the same applicant. In that regard, it is for the first of those authorities to inform the second of the new application, to send it its opinion on that new application and to obtain from it, within a reasonable time, the information in its possession that led to refugee status being granted. That exchange of information is intended to ensure that the authority of the Member State to which the new application has been made is in a position to proceed on a fully informed basis with the checks which it is required to carry out under the international protection procedure.

( 1 ) Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 60). Article 33(2)(a) of that directive provides that Member States may consider an application for international protection inadmissible if, inter alia, another Member State has granted international protection.

( 2 ) See Article 3 of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted (OJ 2011 L 337, p. 9) and Article 5 of Directive 2013/32.

( 3 ) See recital 12 of Directive 2011/95.

( 4 ) Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, signed in Geneva on 28 July 1951.

( 5 ) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950.

( 6 ) Pursuant to the principle of sincere cooperation, enshrined in the first subparagraph of Article 4(3) TEU, the European Union and the Member States are, in full mutual respect, to assist each other in carrying out tasks which flow from the Treaties. Concrete expression is given to that principle in Article 36 of Directive 2011/95 and Article 49 of Directive 2013/32.