EU court backs Belgium on detention of asylum applicants
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that detention centres holding asylum applicants under the border procedure do not need to be located at the border of the member state concerned.
The ruling stems from a series of cases involving third-country nationals who arrived by plane at Brussels Airport in 2023. The Belgian authorities refused them entry to the national territory and placed them in detention centres inside Belgium as part of the EU border procedure for processing asylum applications.
After the four-week period stipulated for such procedures, the examination of their applications continued under a priority procedure, but the Belgian authorities kept the applicants in the same centres on the grounds that they posed a flight risk. Their asylum applications were subsequently rejected.
A Belgian court referred the matter to the Court of Justice, asking whether EU law permitted a member state to detain asylum applicants in a centre located on its territory but not at the border.
Necessary and proportionate
In its ruling, the CJEU states that EU asylum law does not prohibit member states from holding applicants in places that are not geographically situated at the border. It also found that authorities may keep applicants in the same detention facilities after the expiry of the border procedure's time limit, provided that the legal grounds and conditions for continued detention are met.
The CJEU also ruled that investigative steps taken during the border procedure retain their validity in any subsequent procedure. The court does stress that detention must never be automatic or systematic. It can only be applied where it is necessary, proportionate and limited to the time required, and competent authorities must carry out an individual assessment in each case.
© PHOTO JOHN THYS / AFP
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