K and B v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie.
Date: 2018-11-07
33


It follows from the foregoing that Directive 2003/86 must be interpreted as not applying to third country national family members of a beneficiary of subsidiary protection, such as the applicants in the main proceedings.
34


It is clear, however, from the Court’s settled case-law that the Court has jurisdiction to give a preliminary ruling on questions concerning provisions of EU law in situations in which, even if the facts of the case in the main proceedings do not fall within the field of application of EU law directly, provisions of EU law have been rendered applicable by domestic law due to a renvoi made by that law to the content of those provisions (see, to that effect, judgments of 21 December 2011, Cicala, C‑482/10, EU:C:2011:868, paragraph 17; of 18 October 2012, Nolan, C‑583/10, EU:C:2012:638, paragraph 45; and of 15 November 2016, Ullens de Schooten, C‑268/15, EU:C:2016:874, paragraph 53).
35


In such circumstances, it is clearly in the interest of the European Union that, in order to forestall future differences of interpretation, provisions taken from EU law should be interpreted uniformly (see, to that effect, judgments of 18 October 2012, Nolan, C‑583/10, EU:C:2012:638, paragraph 46, and of 22 March 2018, Jacob and Lassus, C‑327/16 and C‑421/16, EU:C:2018:210, paragraph 34).
36


Thus, an interpretation by the Court of provisions of EU law in situations not falling within the scope of EU law is warranted where such provisions have been made applicable to such situations by national law directly and unconditionally, in order to ensure that those situations and situations falling within the scope of EU law are treated in the same way (see, to that effect, judgments of 21 December 2011, Cicala, C‑482/10, EU:C:2011:868, paragraph 19; of 18 October 2012, Nolan, C‑583/10, EU:C:2012:638, paragraph 47; and of 7 November 2013, Romeo, C‑313/12, EU:C:2013:718, paragraph 33).
37


In the present case, the referring court, with exclusive jurisdiction to interpret national law under the framework of the system of judicial cooperation enshrined in Article 267 TFEU (see, to that effect, judgments of 17 July 1997, Leur-Bloem, C‑28/95, EU:C:1997:369, paragraph 33, and of 14 June 2017, Online Games and Others, C‑685/15, EU:C:2017:452, paragraph 45), has made clear that the Netherlands legislature has chosen to ensure that beneficiaries of subsidiary protection are treated more favourably than provided for in Directive 2003/86 by applying the rules applicable to refugees under that directive to beneficiaries of subsidiary protection. The referring court infers that it was, under Dutch law, required to apply Article 12(1) of that directive to the case in the main proceedings.
38


In those circumstances, as the Netherlands Government has also observed, it must be held that in Dutch law that provision is directly and unconditionally applicable to situations such as that at issue in the main proceedings and that it is therefore clearly in the interest of the European Union that the Court rule on the request for a preliminary ruling.
40


It follows from paragraphs 36 to 43 of today’s judgment in C and A (C‑257/17) that such a fact is not capable of calling into question the Court’s jurisdiction to give a preliminary ruling within the limits stated in the Court’s settled case-law, as set out in paragraphs 34 to 36 of the present judgment.
53


In that context, the Member State in question will be able to comply with the requirement, under Article 17 of Directive 2003/86 (see, to that effect, judgment of 9 July 2015, K and A, C‑153/14, EU:C:2015:453, paragraph 60), to examine applications for family reunification on a case-by-case basis according to which account must be taken, inter alia, of specificities related to the sponsor’s refugee status. Thus, as stated in recital 8 of that directive, special attention should be paid to the situation of refugees, since they cannot conceivably lead a normal family life in their country of origin, they may have been separated from their family for a long period of time before being granted refugee status and satisfying the substantive conditions required by Article 7(1) of the directive may pose greater difficulties for them than for other third country nationals.
56


In those circumstances, in the absence of EU rules in that regard, it is, according to the Court’s settled case-law, for the domestic legal system of the Member State in question to determine those requirements in accordance with the principle of procedural autonomy provided, however, that those requirements are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic situations (principle of equivalence) and that they do not render impossible in practice or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by the EU legal order (principle of effectiveness) (see, to that effect, judgment of 22 February 2018, INEOS Köln, C‑572/16, EU:C:2018:100, paragraph 42 and the case-law cited).
58


As regards the principle of effectiveness, it should be recalled that, according to the Court’s settled case-law, every case in which the question arises as to whether a national procedural provision makes the application of EU law impossible or excessively difficult must be analysed by reference to the role of that provision in the procedure, its conduct and its special features, viewed as a whole, before the various national bodies (see, to that effect, judgment of 22 February 2018, INEOS Köln, C‑572/16, EU:C:2018:100, paragraph 44 and the case-law cited).