Official Journal of the European Union

C 72/6

(Case C-507/19)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Common policy on asylum and subsidiary protection - Standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection - Directive 2011/95/EU - Article 12 - Exclusion from being a refugee - Stateless person of Palestinian origin registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) - Conditions to be entitled ipso facto to the benefits of Directive 2011/95 - Cessation of UNRWA protection or assistance)

(2021/C 72/08)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Defendant: XT

Operative part of the judgment

1.The second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) 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 must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to determine whether the protection or assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has ceased, it is necessary to take into account, as part of an individual assessment of all the relevant factors of the situation in question, all the fields of UNRWA’s area of operations which a stateless person of Palestinian origin who has left that area has a concrete possibility of accessing and safely remaining therein;

2.The second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95 must be interpreted as meaning that UNRWA’s protection or assistance cannot be regarded as having ceased where a stateless person of Palestinian origin left the UNRWA area of operations from a field in that area in which his or her personal safety was at serious risk and in which UNRWA was not in a position to provide that individual with protection or assistance, first, if that individual voluntarily travelled to that field from another field in that area in which his or her personal safety was not at serious risk and in which he or she could receive protection or assistance from UNRWA and, secondly, if he or she could not reasonably expect, on the basis of the specific information available to him or her, to receive protection or assistance from UNRWA in the field to which he or she travelled or to be able to return at short notice to the field from which he or she came, which is for the national court to verify.

(1) OJ C 348, 14.10.2019.