Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2026:319
Date: 2026-04-16
Language of the case: French

Summary C-131/25 – 1 
Case C-131/25 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
10 February 2025 
Referring court: 
Conseil d’État (Belgium) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
28 January 2025 
Applicant: 
Axel Dris 
Defendant: 
Gouvernement de la Communauté française 
      
1. Subject-matter and context of the procedure in the main proceedings: 
1 The applicant, who is a Luxembourg national domiciled in a Grand Ducal border 
municipality of Belgium, completed his secondary education in Arlon (Belgium). 
2 On 5 July 2022, he sat the entrance and access examination in medical and dental 
sciences in Belgium, which he passed with a mark of 10.89/20 in part one, a mark 
of 14.34/20 in part two and no mark below 8/20 in the various tests in those parts. 
3 Since he was not a resident within the meaning of Article 1 of the Decree of 
16 June 2006 regulating the number of students in certain undergraduate higher 
education courses, the applicant was subject to a quota capping non-resident 
successful candidates at 30% of the student body, with any supernumerary 
successful candidates being eliminated, where appropriate, depending on their 
ranking in the entrance and access examinations. Since he did not achieve a 
qualifying ranking in the entrance and access examination, the applicant did not 
obtain the certificate of achievement required to enrol in a French-language 
medical school in Belgium. 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – C-131/25 
 
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4 On 27 August 2022, the applicant sat the second test of the entrance examination 
and did not pass it. 
5 By application of 12 September 2022, the applicant challenged the decision 
refusing to grant him the certificate of achievement, seeking its suspension as a 
matter of extreme urgency and its annulment. 
6 By judgment of 27 September 2022, the Conseil d’État (Council of State, 
Belgium) rejected the application for suspension 
www.conseildetat.be/Arrets/254000/500/254597.pdf 
7 By letter of 5 October 2022, the applicant continued with his action for 
annulment. 
2. Provisions of European Union law relied on: 
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 
8 Article 14, entitled ‘Right to education’, provides in paragraph 1 thereof: 
‘Everyone has the right to education and to have access to vocational and 
continuing training’. 
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 
9 The second part, entitled ‘Non-discrimination and citizenship of the EU’, contains 
Articles 18 and 21, which read as follows in the passages referred to in the 
question referred for a preliminary ruling 
‘Article 18 
Within the scope of application of the Treaties, and without prejudice to any 
special provisions contained therein, any discrimination on grounds of nationality 
shall be prohibited. 
…  
Article 21 
1. Every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within 
the territory of the Member States, subject to the limitations and conditions laid 
down in the Treaties and by the measures adopted to give them effect. 
…’ 
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10 Title XII, entitled ‘Education, vocational training, youth and sport’, contains 
Article 165, which is worded as follows in the passages referred to in the question 
referred for a preliminary ruling: 
‘1. The Union shall contribute to the development of quality education by 
encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting 
and supplementing their action, while fully respecting the responsibility of the 
Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of education 
systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity. 
The Union shall contribute to the promotion of European sporting issues, while 
taking account of the specific nature of sport, its structures based on voluntary 
activity and its social and educational function. 
2. Union action shall be aimed at: 
– … 
– encouraging mobility of students and teachers, by encouraging inter alia, the 
academic recognition of diplomas and periods of study, 
– …’ 
3. Provisions of national law relied on: 
Decree of the French Community of 16 June 2006 regulating the number of 
students in certain undergraduate higher education courses 
11 Article 1 provides: 
‘A resident student within the meaning of the present decree shall be understood 
as meaning a student who, at the time of his or her enrolment in an institution of 
higher education, provides proof that his or her main residence is in Belgium and 
that he or she fulfils one of the following conditions: 
1° he or she has the right to remain permanently in Belgium; 
2° he or she has had his or her principal residence in Belgium for at least six 
months prior to his or her enrolment in an institution of higher education, at the 
same time carrying on a remunerated or unremunerated professional activity or 
benefiting from a replacement income granted by a Belgian public service; 
3° he or she has permission to remain for an unlimited period on the basis of 
[the relevant Belgian legislation]; 
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4° he or she has permission to remain in Belgium because he or she enjoys 
refugee status [as defined by Belgian legislation] or has submitted a request to be 
recognised as a refugee; 
5° he or she has the right to reside in Belgium because he or she benefits from 
temporary protection on the basis of [the relevant Belgian legislation]; 
6° he or she has a mother, father, legal guardian, or spouse who fulfils one of 
the above conditions; 
7° he or she has had his or her principal residence in Belgium for at least three 
years at the time of his or her enrolment in an institution of higher education; 
8° he or she has been granted a scholarship for his or her studies within the 
framework of development cooperation for the academic year and for the studies 
for which the request for enrolment was introduced. 
The “right to remain permanently” within the meaning of paragraph 1, 1°, shall 
mean, for citizens of another Member State of the European Union, the right 
recognised by virtue of Articles 16 and 17 of [Directive 2004/38] …’ 
Decree of 12 July 2012 integrating courses in medicine and dental sciences into 
the scheme established by the Decree of 16 June 2006 regulating the number of 
students in certain undergraduate higher education courses 
12 Article 1 provides: 
‘Article 3 of the Decree of 16 June 2006 … shall be supplemented by 4° and 5°, 
which are worded follows: 
4° Bachelor of Medicine; 
5° Bachelor of Dental Sciences’. 
Decree of the French Community of 29 March 2017 on studies in medical and 
dental sciences (in the version in force at the time) 
13 Article 1 essentially provided: 
‘Only students who … and who hold a certificate of achievement issued following 
an entrance and access examination for undergraduate studies in medical … 
sciences, hereinafter referred to as “entrance and access examination”, shall have 
access to undergraduate studies in medical … sciences’. 
14 Article 6 was, in essence,  worded as follows: 
‘Paragraph 1 … At the latest within 10 days of the organisation of the 
examination, the selection board of the entrance and access examination shall 
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issue … to successful candidates a certificate of achievement in the entrance and 
access examination. … 
Paragraph 2 In its deliberations, the selection board for the entrance and access 
examination shall apply the following provision: per stream, there shall be 
established a number T equal to the total number of candidates who have passed 
the entrance and access examination referred to in Article 1 and a number NR per 
stream equal to the number of candidates who have passed the entrance and access 
examination and who are not considered to be resident students within the 
meaning of Article 1 of the Decree of 16 June 2006 regulating the number of 
students in certain undergraduate higher education courses. 
Where the ratio between that number NR and the number T exceeds 30%, the 
selection board of the entrance and access examination shall rank the candidates 
who have passed the entrance examination who cannot be regarded as resident 
students in order to designate those to whom a certificate of achievement will be 
issued. The selection board shall rank those candidates in descending order of the 
overall marks obtained by each of the candidates in the entrance and access 
examination. It shall grant certificates of achievement to the candidates who have 
passed the entrance examination ranked in descending order until the proportion 
of candidates who cannot be regarded as resident students corresponds to 30% of 
the total number of successful candidates. 
At the end of that procedure, a number L shall be established per stream equal to 
the number of students holding a certificate of achievement in the examination.’ 
15 Article 17a, inserted by the Decree of 20 December 2017, provided: 
‘Articles 1 to 7 of the present decree shall not apply to students who, pursuant to 
the Special Agreement on university cooperation in medical training between the 
Government of the French Community of Belgium and the Government of the 
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, signed in Brussels on 17 July 2017, are eligible to 
complete the remainder of the undergraduate programme in medical sciences at a 
university.’ 
16 Article 2 of that ‘Agreement’ provides: 
‘Each year, a maximum of 15 students from the University of Luxembourg, with a 
secondary education diploma awarded by a secondary school in the Grand Duchy 
of Luxembourg and meeting the requirements for admission based on academic 
record to the University of Luxembourg, are eligible to complete the remainder of 
the undergraduate programme in medical and dental sciences at a university in the 
French Community [Belgium]. 
Those students shall be selected by the University of Luxembourg from among 
those who, in that year only, passed the first year in the grade of ‘Academic 
Bachelor in Life Sciences – Medicine stream’ and ranked in the qualifying 
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position after the end-of-year examination in which places are awarded in order of 
merit according to the general average.’ 
4. The arguments of the parties: 
The applicant 
17 The applicant claims, first of all, that, since he resides in the Grand Duchy of 
Luxembourg and has completed his education in Belgium, he is the victim of 
unjustified discrimination 
– when compared with ‘Luxembourg nationals holding a secondary education 
diploma awarded by a secondary education establishment in the Grand Duchy 
of Luxembourg’ in so far as he cannot benefit from the derogation laid down in 
the Special Agreement on university cooperation in medical training concluded 
with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on 17 July 2017; and 
– when compared with ‘students who hold a certificate of higher secondary 
education issued by a secondary education establishment situated in Belgium’ 
or ‘in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’ and who, residing in Belgium, ‘had 
only to pass the entrance examination’ without being subject to a quota of 30%. 
18 That first part of the applicant’s argument is the subject of a question referred to 
the Cour constitutionnelle (Constitutional Court, Belgium) for a preliminary ruling 
on that unequal treatment, as the applicant had suggested ‘even if that means that 
the [Constitutional Court] refers a question to the Court of Justice of the European 
Union for a preliminary ruling’. 
19 In the second part, the applicant relies more particularly on his status as a ‘cross-
border student’ and submits that Article 1 of the Decree of 16 June 2006, 
Articles 1, 6 and 17a of the Decree of 29 March 2017, and the Decree of 
20 December 2017 approving the Special Agreement on university cooperation in 
medical training between the French Community and Luxembourg, referred to 
above, infringe the first paragraph of Article 18 and Article 21(1) TFEU, in that 
they do not take account of ‘the situation of cross-border students … when 
establishing the system for the entrance examination and the organisation of the 
exception laid down for Luxembourg students’. 
20 He points out that, in accordance with the case-law of the Court of Justice, 
regulation of non-resident students is conceivable only if it is justified in the light 
of the objective of protecting public health. He observes that the parliamentary 
work relating to the Decree of 29 March 2017 justifies the quota of 30% as 
follows: ‘The objective of restricting access for non-resident students is to 
maintain a high-quality, balanced medical service open to all. The large 
proportion of such students who leave the territory at the end of their full medical 
training militates in favour of limiting their number [by capping it to 30% of the 
total number of successful candidates]’ and that the introduction of that quota is 
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therefore justified by the large proportion of students leaving the territory at the 
end of their studies. 
He is of the view that the situation of cross-border students is different from that 
of other non-resident students, since they will be perfectly able to practise as a 
doctor on Belgian territory at the end of their studies. In his view, the situation of 
cross-border persons must be assessed in the light of the fact that the place of 
residence and the place of study or the place of work may be located in adjacent 
but different national territories. He adds that there are many international 
agreements between Belgium and Luxembourg (taxation, healthcare). He 
concludes that it is discriminatory to treat cross-border students and other non-
resident students in a similar manner. 
21 He submits that EU law prohibits national legislation that would place a student 
who already avails himself of his freedom of movement at a disadvantage, 
whether in his country of origin or in the country of destination. In his view, the 
French Community of Belgium abused the derogating provisions of the judgment 
of 13 April 2010, Bressol and Others, C-73/08, EU:C:2010:181, ruling on a 
reference for a preliminary ruling from the Belgian Constitutional Court. 
22 The applicant states that the Agreement between the French Community and the 
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg affiliates him with Belgium (since he did not 
complete his secondary education in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), 
preventing him from being able to benefit from that agreement, * whereas the 
decrees of the French Community affiliate him with the Grand Duchy of 
Luxembourg (since he is not regarded as a ‘resident student’), obliging him to be 
subject to the 30% quota of non-resident students. According to the applicant, EU 
law does not allow him to be the victim of arbitrary and contradictory affiliations 
which always operate to his disadvantage and in the service of the defendant’s 
interests. 
23 In his view, contrary to the view taken by the Conseil d’État (Council of State), 
prima facie, in its judgment of 27 September 2022, his situation is similar to that 
of a Luxembourg student who is going to begin a first year of medical study in the 
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He satisfies all the conditions for access and, in 
particular, has the requisite level of knowledge of German. He also considers that 
he is in a similar situation to a student classified as a ‘resident’, since he has 
completed his entire school education in Belgium and his primary connections are 
in Belgium (his extra-curricular activities are also in Belgium, his friends live in 
Belgium, etc.). 
 
* The applicant points out in that regard that the body representing higher education institutions, 
ARES, informed him that he cannot benefit from the agreement if he enrolled in the first and 
only year of medicine at the University of Luxembourg since he holds a diploma of completion 
of secondary education awarded by the French Community of Belgium. See the first paragraph 
of Article 2 of the agreement, reproduced in paragraph 16 of this summary. 
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24 As regards his status as a cross-border student, the applicant points out that, under 
EU law, an EU citizen may not suffer adverse treatment merely because he or she 
has exercised his or her freedom of movement. He relies in that regard on the 
judgment of 13 April 2010, Bressol and Others, C-73/08, EU:C:2010:181 and 
claims that the 30% quota applied to non-residents can be justified only with 
regard to students who have not yet exercised their freedom of movement. It 
cannot be applied to a student who already has a connection with the French 
Community and who enjoys the European protection reserved for citizens who 
have exercised their freedom of movement. 
25 On the basis of statistical data, he also claims that pupils from the Grand Duchy of 
Luxembourg attending school in Belgium and their Belgian fellow pupils from the 
province of Luxembourg (Belgium) share the same extensive employment area. 
Trained carers will serve this extensive employment area and the wider region 
concerned, as is already the case today. Moreover, in his view, a large part of the 
care available to the inhabitants of the province of Luxembourg (Belgium) is 
provided by care providers from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. 
26 The applicant infers from the preparatory documents for the Decree of 12 July 
2012, which amended the Decree of 16 June 2006 to include medical and dental 
sciences studies that the studies carried out by the French Community [of 
Belgium], following the judgment in Bressol, in order to draw conclusions as to 
the future place of exercise of the students admitted to courses of study subject to 
quotas were therefore based on the origin of the diploma of completion of 
secondary education and not on the place of residence, in accordance with the 
requirements of the Cour constitutionnelle (Constitutional Court) and the Court of 
Justice. The applicant is part of the cohort of students holding a Belgian secondary 
education diploma. It would be unreasonable and methodologically inaccurate to 
regard the results of studies obtained for the cohort of students with diplomas of 
completion of secondary education obtained outside Belgium as being a reflection 
of the applicant’s case. 
27 According to the applicant, the judgment of 15 March 2005, Bidar, C-209/03, 
EU:C:2005:169, treats a pupil or student who pursues his or her studies in another 
country of the European Union in the same way as a resident of that country. As a 
result, he or she cannot be treated differently than pupils or students from the 
country of destination, even if he or she does not have the legal status of resident. 
28 He adds that it is therefore clear that the decrees of 2006 and 2017 infringe EU 
law, which prohibits any national legislation which places a student who has 
already exercised his or her freedom of movement at a disadvantage, whether in 
relation to students from the host country or students from the country of origin. 
29 Finally, in the event that the Conseil d’État (Council of State) takes the view that 
it is not clear from EU law that the 30% quota reserved for non-residents could 
not be applied to the applicant, the applicant requests that two questions be 
referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling 
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and, in the alternative, he also requests that a question be referred to the Cour 
constitutionnelle (Constitutional Court) for a preliminary ruling. 
The defendant 
30 The defendant notes at the outset that the applicant’s situation is not comparable 
to that of a student who has successfully completed his or her first year of medical 
studies at the University of Luxembourg and is eligible for exemption from the 
entrance examination under Article 17a of the Decree of 29 March 2017 and 
Article 2 of the Agreement of 17 July 2017. The applicant wishes to enrol in the 
first year of studies in medical sciences, whereas the Luxembourg students whom 
to he compares himself have access to ‘enrolment in the second part of Unit I of 
studies in medical sciences’. Moreover, those students passed their first year, 
which demonstrates their aptitude without their needing to undergo an entry 
examination. 
31 As regards the situation of cross-border students, the defendant considers that the 
applicant does not demonstrate how it should specifically have derogated from the 
rules on non-residents laid down by the decrees of 16 June 2006 and 29 March 
2017, since, in its view, the situation of cross-border residents is no different from 
that of other non-residents who have obtained a certificate of secondary education 
at a Belgian school. It adds that the argument that a cross-border student (on the 
border between Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) is likely to offer 
his or her medical services in Belgium is not plausible, since, first, that applies to 
any non-resident student who decides to settle in Belgium at the end of those 
studies and, secondly, it proceeds from the assumption that he will be a ‘cross-
border’ doctor at the end of his academic course in medicine, which is merely an 
expectation. Moreover, according to the defendant, an actual cross-border worker 
cannot be treated in the same way as a hypothetical cross-border worker. 
32 Furthermore, the defendant takes the view that the considerations which led the 
Cour constitutionnelle (Constitutional Court) to hold, in its judgment No 89/2011 
of 31 May 2011 (ECLI:BE:GHCC:2011:ARR.89), handed down after receiving 
the answers given to it by the Court of Justice in the judgment of 13 April 2010, 
Bressol and Others, C-73/08, EU:C:2010:181, that the restriction imposed on non-
resident students’ access to the first year of studies in veterinary medicine was not 
disproportionate, are also applicable in the present case * in view of the large 
number of non-resident students who, once qualified, do not practise in Belgium 
and in the light of the objective of maintaining a high-quality, balanced medical 
service accessible to all. 
 
* It will be recalled that, in Bressol and Others, the Cour constitutionnelle (Constitutional Court) 
and the Court of Justice did not specifically rule on the quota for access to medical studies at 
issue in the present case, since it was introduced subsequently by the Decree of 12 July 2012. 
See paragraph 12 of this summary. 
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33 The defendant considers that the judgments of 15 March 2005, Bidar, C-209/03, 
EU:C:2005:169, and of 14 December 2016, Bragança Linares Verruga and 
Others, C-238/15, EU:C:2016:949, are not relevant in the present case as, in those 
judgments, legislation on financial assistance for students and social benefits were 
at issue. 
34 In its view, therefore, it is not possible to derive from them a universal rule for the 
interpretation of national legislation on access to medical and paramedical studies. 
35 The same is true of the judgment of 18 July 2013, Prinz and Seeberger, C-523/11 
and C-585/11, EU:C:2013:524, in which once again the right to an education or 
training grant was at issue, and the judgment of 20 June 2013, Giersch and 
Others, C-20/12, EU:C:2013:411, in which financial aid from the Luxembourg 
State for higher education studies was also at issue. 
36 More fundamentally, the defendant criticises the applicant’s persistent failure to 
distinguish between students holding a diploma of completion of secondary 
education obtained in the French Community of Belgium and who may on that 
basis rely on the judgment of 15 March 2005, Bidar, C-209/03, EU:C:2005:169 in 
relation to financial assistance sensu lato and students who exercise their freedom 
of movement to study, but who, in accordance with the judgments of 13 April 
2010, Bressol and Others, C-73/08, EU:C:2010:181, and of 7 July 2005, 
Commission v Austria, C-147/03, EU:C:2005:427, may be subject to restrictions 
based on their nationality and public health requirements. 
5. Assessment of the Conseil d’État: 
37 The Conseil d’État (Council of State) points out, first of all, that the applicant’s 
interest is indirect and hypothetical in so far as it criticises the Belgium-
Luxembourg Agreement of 17 July 2017 or the Decree of 20 December 2017 
assenting to it. 
38 The derogation provided for by Article 17a of the Decree of 29 March 2017 and 
by Article 2 of the Agreement of 17 July 2017 concerns a situation different to 
that of the applicant. Article 2 of that agreement allows a certain number of 
students who have passed the first year in the grade of ‘Academic Bachelor in Life 
Sciences – Medicine stream’ and who have been selected on the basis of their 
results (the top 15 of the ranking) to be admitted to the remainder of the 
undergraduate programme in medical and dental sciences. That provision does not 
apply to students who, like the applicant, wish to enrol in the first year of 
undergraduate university studies. It is therefore not applicable in the present case. 
Moreover, under the terms of that agreement, it is not sufficient to have a 
secondary education diploma at a secondary school in the Grand Duchy of 
Luxembourg, it is also necessary to have ‘passed the first year in the grade of 
Bachelor of Medicine’ and to be among those ranked in the top 15 in the end-of-
year examination. There is no reason to suppose that the applicant would have 
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satisfied those two conditions if he had completed his secondary education in the 
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. 
39 The single plea in law is therefore inadmissible in so far as it criticises the 
Agreement of 17 July 2017. It is on that basis that the agreement is not referred to 
in the question referred for a preliminary ruling. 
40 As to the remainder, the applicant submits that Article 1 of the Decree of 16 June 
2006 regulating the number of students in certain undergraduate higher education 
courses, Articles 1, 6 and 17a of the Decree of 29 March 2017 on studies in 
medical and dental sciences, and the Decree assenting to the Belgo-Luxembourg 
Special Agreement of 17 July 2017 infringe the first paragraph of Article 18 
TFEU and Article 21(1) TFEU. 
41 Under Article 267 TFEU, where a question of interpretation of the Treaties is 
raised in a case pending before a national court or tribunal against whose 
decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, that court or tribunal 
must bring the matter before the Court. 
42 Since the plea calls into question not only the compatibility of the provisions of 
the abovementioned decrees with the constitutional principles of equality and non-
discrimination but also with the principles of European citizenship and freedom of 
movement, the Conseil d’État (Council of State) also refers the question set out 
below to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling, 
without, however, referring to the Belgium-Luxembourg Agreement of 17 July 
2017. 
6. Question referred for a preliminary ruling: 
43 The following question is referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union 
for a preliminary ruling: 
‘Are the first paragraph of Article 18 and Article 21(1) of the Treaty on the 
Functioning of the European Union, read in isolation or in conjunction with 
Article 165(1) and the second indent of Article 165(2) thereof and with 
Article 14(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, to be 
interpreted as precluding a system of quotas for “non-resident” students, such as 
that established by Article 1 of the Decree of the French Community of 16 June 
2006 regulating the number of students in certain undergraduate higher education 
courses and Articles 1, 6 and 17a of the Decree of the French Community of 
29 March 2017 on studies in medical and dental sciences, for access to university 
medical studies with the aim of maintaining a high-quality medical service and 
guaranteeing the objectives of quality supervision during training and the 
protection of public health based on the high proportion of non-resident students 
who leave the territory at the conclusion of their full medical training?’