62024CJ0458_RES
Case C-458/24 [Daraa] (
i
)
DO
v
Bundesrepublik Deutschland
(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Verwaltungsgericht Sigmaringen)
Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 5 March 2026
(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Asylum policy – Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 – Article 3(2) – Article 29 – Transfer of the asylum seeker to the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection – Suspension, by the Member State responsible, of the taking charge and taking back of asylum seekers – Directive (EU) 2013/32 – Article 33 – Inadmissible applications)
Border controls, asylum and immigration – Asylum policy – Criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection – Regulation No 604/2013 – Procedures for taking charge and taking back – Time limit laid down for carrying out the transfer of the applicant for international protection – Consequences of failure to comply with that time limit – Transfer of responsibility for examining the application for international protection to the requesting Member State – Reasons for failure to comply with the time limit attributable to the State or person concerned – Irrelevant
(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 604/2013, Art. 29(1) and (2))
(see paragraphs 45-47, 49-61)
Border controls, asylum and immigration – Asylum policy – Criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection – Regulation No 604/2013 – Procedures for taking charge and taking back – Unilateral suspension by the Member State initially designated as responsible – No systemic flaws resulting in a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment – Determining Member State – Obligation for that State to examine the criteria for determining the Member State responsible and itself become the Member State responsible – None – Persons subject to a transfer decision – Failure to comply with the time limit for transfer – Responsibility for examining transferred automatically to the requesting Member State – Failure to comply caused by unilateral suspension – Irrelevant
(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 604/2013, Arts 3(2), second and third subparas., and 29(1) and (2))
(see paragraph 66, operative part 1)
Border controls, asylum and immigration – Asylum policy – Procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection – Directive 2013/32 – Procedure for examining an application for international protection – Application capable of being considered as inadmissible by the Member States – Ground – Other Member State responsible for the examination and having accepted a request to take charge or take back the applicant – Not permissible – Transfer decision and decision not to examine under Regulation No 604/2013 – Whether permissible
(European Parliament and Council Directive 2013/32, Art. 33(1))
(see paragraph 73, operative part 3)
Résumé
Hearing a request for a preliminary ruling from the Verwaltungsgericht Sigmaringen (Administrative Court, Sigmaringen, Germany), the Court of Justice interprets Regulation No 604/2013 (
1
) and Directive 2013/32 (
2
) in order to clarify the responsibilities relating to the examination of applications for international protection where the Member State responsible has suspended the taking charge of the applicants concerned.
DO, a Syrian national, entered Germany on 18 April 2023 and applied for asylum on 26 April 2023. The Italian Republic was, however, identified as the Member State responsible for examining that application.
The Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, Germany) sent the Italian Republic a request to take charge of DO, but received no reply. In accordance with Article 22(7) of the Dublin III Regulation, it therefore deemed the application to have been accepted and decided, on 18 July 2023, to dismiss DO’s application for asylum as inadmissible.
On 27 July 2023, DO brought an appeal against that decision before the Administrative Court, Sigmaringen, which is the referring court.
That court notes that it is apparent from two circulars issued by the Italian authorities in December 2022 that, provisionally and subject to exceptions, the Italian Republic would no longer accept transfers of applicants for international protection to Italy under the Dublin III Regulation. It would thus refuse to take charge of any applicants for whom it is responsible pursuant to that regulation.
In those circumstances, the referring court decided to refer several questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling seeking, in essence, to ascertain whether, first, in the specific situation where a Member State designated as responsible unilaterally suspended the taking charge and taking back of applicants for international protection, responsibility for examining an application is to be transferred to the determining Member State. Second, the referring court asks the Court to clarify whether Directive 2013/32 allows the rejection of an application for international protection as inadmissible on the ground that the Member State responsible is not willing to take charge or take back an applicant for international protection.
Findings of the Court
In the first place, as regards the responsibility for examining an application for international protection, the Court points out, first of all, that the determining Member State may itself become responsible for that examination. That is the case where, because of ‘systemic flaws’ in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions for applicants resulting in ‘a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter [of Fundamental Rights of the European Union]’, the applicant cannot be transferred to the Member State responsible and if it finds, following further examination of the criteria set out in Chapter III of the Dublin III Regulation, that the transfer cannot be made to any Member State designated on the basis of those criteria or to the first Member State with which the application was lodged.
The Court has already held that unilateral suspension of the taking charge and taking back of applicants for international protection, such as that at issue in the present case, is not capable, in itself, of justifying a finding of such a systemic flaw resulting in a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment.
In such a case, the determining Member State must neither continue to examine the criteria set out in Chapter III of the Dublin III Regulation on the basis of the second and third subparagraphs of Article 3(2) of that regulation, nor itself become the Member State responsible under the third subparagraph of Article 3(2) of the regulation.
Therefore it cannot be held that there is an unwritten condition of application of the second and third subparagraphs of Article 3(2) of the Dublin III Regulation, according to which the Member State responsible should be willing to take charge or take back applicants for international protection.
Next, still in the context of a unilateral suspension of the taking charge and taking back of applicants for international protection by a Member State, the Court examines the risk, referred to by the referring court, that the applicant for international protection concerned may have access to the international protection procedure unduly impeded and that, ultimately, no Member State will examine the application.
In that regard, it recalls that Article 29(2) of the Dublin III Regulation provides for the automatic transfer of responsibility to the requesting Member State, without making that transfer conditional on any reaction by the Member State responsible, where the transfer of the applicant in question to the Member State responsible does not take place within the time limit for transfer, which is, in principle, six months. That provision is worded in broad terms, without any limitation of the transfer of responsibility to specific situations. That transfer of responsibility thus occurs regardless of the reasons why the transfer did not take place within the prescribed time limit and irrespective of whether this is attributable to the requesting Member State, the Member State responsible or to the person concerned. It therefore occurs also where the transfer of the person concerned could not be carried out within the prescribed time limit for transfer on account of the unilateral suspension of the taking charge and taking back by the Member State designated as responsible under the criteria set out in Chapter III of the Dublin III Regulation.
The objectives pursued by the Dublin III Regulation support that interpretation. In that regard, the Court notes that, in view of the objectives of rapid determination of the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection and of guaranteeing effective access to the procedures for granting such protection, it is essential that applications for international protection are, when necessary, examined by a Member State other than that designated as responsible pursuant to the criteria set out in Chapter III of the Dublin III Regulation, where the transfer of the applicant does not take place within the prescribed time limit for transfer.
In that regard, the Court acknowledges that that interpretation allows the Member State responsible to escape, at the end of the time limit for transfer and simply by unilateral suspension of the procedures for taking charge and for taking back of asylum seekers, its responsibilities under the Dublin III Regulation. However, it points out that, even in such a case, it is for the requesting Member State and the Member State responsible to consult each other and cooperate with a view to a transfer before the expiry of the time limit for transfer. In addition, the responsibility of the latter Member State remains full and complete during the time limit for transfer, with the result that, during that time, the system of criteria for determining responsibility established by the Dublin III Regulation is to be maintained.
The automatic transfer of responsibility for examining the application for international protection where the person concerned does not take place within that time limit is, ultimately, the only way in which that person can be guaranteed effective access to the asylum procedure.
Last, a Member State may not rely on the fact that other Member States have also failed to perform their obligations in order to justify its own failure to fulfil its obligations. The remedy for a possible infringement of the Dublin III Regulation by the Member State initially designated as responsible lies in the possibility for the European Commission and any other Member State to institute proceedings for failure to fulfil obligations against that Member State.
In the second place, as regards the question whether an application for international protection may be rejected as inadmissible on the ground that the Member State responsible is not willing to take charge or take back the applicant for international protection, the Court finds that Article 33(2) of Directive 2013/32 lists exhaustively the situations in which Member States may consider an application for international protection to be inadmissible. Accordingly, and in view of the exceptional nature of the grounds of inadmissibility listed therein, that provision must be interpreted strictly and cannot therefore be applied to a situation which does not correspond to its wording.
Article 33(1) of Directive 2013/32 clearly distinguishes cases in which an application for international protection is not examined under the Dublin III Regulation from those in which such an application may be rejected as inadmissible on one of the grounds exhaustively listed in Article 33(2) of that directive.
Consequently, the Court states that Article 33(1) of Directive 2013/32 does not allow an application for international protection to be rejected as inadmissible on the ground that the Member State responsible is not willing to take charge or to take back an applicant for international protection.
(
i
)	The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any party to the proceedings.
(
1
)	Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 31; ‘the Dublin III Regulation’).
(
2
)	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).