Author
Criteria and conditions
The same legal framework is applicable to refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection in terms of family reunification. As soon as refugees and subsidiary protection beneficiaries are granted protection, they are entitled to apply for it. Family reunification is allowed for:[1]
- Spouses or partners (PACS) – including from same sex – with whom they were in a relationship prior to lodging their asylum claim if they are at least 18 years old;
- De facto partners (concubinage) – including from same sex – who are at least 18 years old with whom they were and remain in a durable and steady relationship, including living under the same roof;
- Children until their 19th birthday; the date to determine this is the date of lodging of the parent’s application as mentioned by the Council of State in June 2023.[2]
- For minor refugees: their first degree parents and their parents’ dependent children; the date chosen to determine if the refugee is or was a minor for the purpose of this procedure is the date of lodging of the asylum claim. A constitutional challenge concerning the possibility to include the minor BIP’s siblings was blocked by the Council of State. Currently, the law still requires that the minor BIP be unmarried to benefit from this provision, despite a CJEU ruling highlighting the illegality of such a requirement in Belgium.[3]
The application for family reunification is not time-limited. Family reunification is not subjected to income or health insurance requirements,[4] even if the requested is lodged after 3 months contrary to the possibility offered by EU law to then have refugees go through the normal procedure for foreigners which has such requirements.
Beneficiaries’ family members have to request a visa at the French embassy with all the documentation proving their relationship with the refugee or the beneficiary of subsidiary protection they want to join.[5] There is a fee of the equivalent of EUR 99 in local currency that must be paid per person applying, regardless of the outcome. The embassy communicates to OFPRA the elements collected and asks for certification of the declarations. If the information collected by the embassy corresponds to the declarations the beneficiary made to OFPRA both at the beginning of their asylum claim and when asked during the family reunification procedure, the family members must be issued a visa without delay.[6] The visa is valid for three months and then the family has to ask for a permit to stay within two months.
In practice, beneficiaries and their family members face difficulties in gathering the documentation proving their family ties (which add to the difficulties related to the complexity of the visa form). In case of traditional or religious unions, they do not to have any certificate of the celebration and cannot then prove they are married or partners. They must then prove a stable and durable relationship, which requires much more documents. The same problems have been identified concerning birth certificates. Such documentation does not even exist in some countries and the delays for being issued a visa in order to come to France, in the framework of family reunification, can be very long. DNA testing is generally not used: moreover, they would only be considered as valid if ordered by a French judge, not initiated by the family or BIP.
When family member cannot obtain a passport, consulate can issue a document called “laissez-passer” which replaces the visa.
If the administration does not respond to the visa request within two months, it is considered an implicit refusal, unless the diplomatic representation informed the family and applicant that they were extending the procedure for necessary verifications of civil status documents (4 months renewable once). The implicit refusal can be contested as a negative decision. In practice all these steps usually takes more than one year.
[1] Article L. 561-2 Ceseda, as amended by Article 3 Law n. 2018-778 of 10 September 2018.
[2] Council of State, 29 June 2023, Decision No 472495 A, available in English at: https://bit.ly/4cGKx1l.
[3] CJEU, Case C-230/21, X v. Belgium, 17 November 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3UbGMZB.
[4] Article L. 561-2 Ceseda.
[5] Article L. 561-5 Ceseda.
[6] Articles L. 561-14 to L. 561-16 Ceseda.