Author
Third countries
An asylum application can be declared inadmissible when the asylum applicant has been recognised as refugee in a third country and can still receive protection in that country, or can enjoy sufficient protection in that country, including protection from refoulement, and will be re-admitted to the territory of that particular third country (Article 30a(1)(b) Aliens Act).[1] This inadmissibility clause is an implementation of Article 33(2)(b) and Article 35 Asylum Procedures Directive.
As stipulated in Paragraph C2/6.2 of the Aliens Circular, the IND assumes that the asylum applicant will be re-admitted in the third country in case:
- The asylum applicant still has a valid permit for international protection in the third country;
- The asylum applicant has a valid residence permit or visa and he or she can obtain international protection;
- There is information from the third country from which it can be deduced that the asylum applicant already has been granted international protection or that he or she is eligible for international protection;
- Statements of the asylum applicant that he or she has already been granted protection in a third country and this information has been confirmed by the third country.
In the situations mentioned above, the IND assumes that the asylum applicant will be re-admitted to the third country, unless the asylum applicant can substantiate (make it plausible) that they will not be re-admitted to the third country. The first country of asylum concept is scarcely used in practice. Often, the (general) third country concept (see Safe third country) is used. In 2021, there was only one case about a first country of asylum concerning Peru.[2] The Regional Court Amsterdam decided that the IND should further investigate the residential status of the Yemeni asylum applicant in Peru. Following the decision, the asylum applicant got another interview after which he received international protection.
In 2025, only two cases of application of the first country of asylum were dealt with by a Dutch court. The cases concerned Nigeria and the West Bank as the first country of asylum. Both cases were dismissed by the Court, as it was unclear whether the applicants could be admitted to these countries.[3]
EU Member States
An asylum application will be declared inadmissible if the asylum applicant has international protection in another EU Member State (Article 30a (1) under a of the Aliens Act). Even if the residence permit has expired, the asylum application will be declared inadmissible.[4] This is because it is assumed that the international protection status can only be actively withdrawn and cannot simply expire.
Asylum applicants have often argued that their return to another Member State would be contrary to Article 3 ECHR. However, this is hardly ever accepted by the courts. Since the 2019 CJEU Ibrahim judgment,[5] the focus seems to have shifted from the general situation in the Member State to the particular vulnerability of the beneficiary of protection. However, case law with regard to particular vulnerability is also very strict. For example, the Council of State does not automatically recognise families, single parents and status holders with PTSD as particularly vulnerable.[6] In an internal information message of the IND, it is stated that for particular vulnerability it is important to assess whether someone is self-sufficient.[7] Moreover, the internal information message states that individual guarantees should be requested for particularly vulnerable beneficiaries of protection from Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary, given that protection beneficiaries returned to these Member States are in principle assumed to be at risk of facing a situation of extreme material poverty, as stated in the Ibrahim ruling.
Greece: Most beneficiaries of international protection that apply for asylum in the Netherlands were previously admitted by Greece.
On 28 July 2021, the Council of State finally ruled that protection beneficiaries from Greece cannot be sent back without the Minister more thoroughly motivating that there is no breach of Article 3 ECHR upon their return.[8] In response, the Minister announced that it would start an investigation into the situation of beneficiaries of international protection in Greece, thereby extending the decision term for 9 months for these cases of beneficiaries of international protection as of 1 October 2021 on the ground of it being a complex factual and legal matter.[9] Cases in which the decision term had already expired by 1 October were handled in the national procedure without declaring the requests inadmissible.
The announced investigation was carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The report was published on 24 June 2022.[10] On 14 September 2022, the Minister announced that it needed more time to study the report, which meant that decision-making in cases of beneficiaries of international protection from Greece was still suspended.[11] Finally, on 7 November 2022 the Minister said that following the report, beneficiaries of international protection from Greece could no longer be sent back to the country. However, as the situation in Greece is changing rapidly, cases will still only be decided upon after the prolonged decision period has ended (using the general prolonging of decisions from WBV 2023/26, see Legal Penalties).[12] This means that beneficiaries of international protection from Greece applying for asylum in the Netherlands have to wait 15 months before their asylum procedure starts. In 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a new report which did not change the situation for beneficiaries of international protection from Greece applying for asylum in the Netherlands.[13]
There is one exception as to not declaring asylum applications from beneficiaries of international protection from Greece inadmissible: beneficiaries of international protection who can be regarded as ‘self-reliant’. The conditions are as follows: the beneficiary of international protection possesses a residence permit and residence document (the ADET), a tax number, a social security number, had access to accommodation and facilities in Greece and can obtain them again. However, the few cases that were (about to be) declared inadmissible based on this ‘self-reliance’ criterium were all cancelled or dismissed in court,[14] with just two exceptions.[15] In 2025, a new internal information message had been published by the immigration office in which the conditions for the ‘self-reliance’ criterium had been anonymised.[16] After the publication of this internal message, the ‘self-reliance’ criterium had been invoked more frequently by the immigration office. As of yet, only two courts have ruled on this subject.[17] Both Courts ruled that the IND should be open about the conditions for the ‘self-reliance’ criterium. Moreover, the Regional Court of Rotterdam ruled that the situation in Greece for beneficiaries of international protection is still very bad.
On 18 June 2024, the CJEU held that, where Member States cannot declare as inadmissible the asylum application of a recognised refugee in a second Member State because of the serious risk of the applicant being subject to ill-treatment there, the first Member State may conduct a full and up-to-date examination of the application in which it takes full account of the previous decision by the other Member State and of the elements supporting it.[18] Following this judgment, the IND released an internal information message in which they recognised that the files of beneficiaries of international protection who cannot return have to be requested from the Member State in question.[19]
When the IND rejects asylum applications from beneficiaries of international protection from Greece, it also issues a return decision (to the country of origin). However, it is unclear whether this is allowed under the Return Directive. In 2025, a few courts have ruled that it is impossible to issue a return decision if Greece has not terminated the international protection status.[20]
Hungary: The Council of State ruled in 2020 that the Minister must provide further reasons why a beneficiary of international protection and her minor children, due to their special vulnerability, would not end up in a state of extreme material poverty as described in the Ibrahim judgment, in violation of Article 3 ECHR after their return to Hungary. The country information which the Council of State relied on, showed that conditions in Hungary are extremely difficult for beneficiaries of international protection. The Council also considered that the Hungarian authorities have not been willing to assist beneficiaries of international protection and even actively oppose them.[21] As far as known to the authors of the report, there have only been two rulings on beneficiaries of international protection from Hungary in 2024, both of which were confirming the rejections of their asylum applications.[22] In 2025, there were no rulings.
In February 2021, the CJEU answered preliminary questions of the Council of State about the detention of beneficiaries of international protection from other Member States.[23] The question was whether the Return Directive prevents beneficiaries of international protection recognised in other EU Member States from being detained on national grounds, given that they do not receive a return decision, but merely an order to leave for the territory of the other Member State. The Court ruled that the Return Directive does not preclude a Member State from placing a protection beneficiary residing illegally in its territory in administrative detention, in order to carry out the forced transfer to the Member State in which that person holds a protection status. That applies for cases in which the person refused to comply with the order to move to the Member State having issued their status, and it is not possible to issue a return decision.
[1] Article 30a(1)(b) Aliens Act.
[2] Regional Court Amsterdam, Decision No NL21.18983, 24 December 2021.
[3] Regional Court Utrecht, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:13774, 16 July 2025, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/4pEwSgM; Regional Court Haarlem, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:6070, 3 April 2025, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/4qGBaVF.
[4] Council of State, ECLI:NL:RVS:2017:1253, 19 May 2017, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3utWGpa.
[5] CJEU, Bashar Ibrahim (C‑297/17), Mahmud Ibrahim, Fadwa Ibrahim, Bushra Ibrahim, Mohammad Ibrahim, Ahmad Ibrahim (C‑318/17), Nisreen Sharqawi, Yazan Fattayrji, Hosam Fattayrji (C‑319/17) v Bundesrepublik Deutschland, and Bundesrepublik Deutschland v Taus Magamadov (C‑438/17), 19 March 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/499i3uS.
[6] Council of State, ECLI:NL:RVS:2020:1102, 22 April 2020, available in Dutch: https://bit.ly/3ST9zmc (single parents are not particularly vulnerable), Regional Court Middelburg, Decision No NL20.15979, 24 November 2020 (PTSD on its own does not lead to particular vulnerability).
[7] IB 2021/56 asielverzoeken van bijzonder kwetsbare statushouders, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3hCLBf6.
[8] Council of State, ECLI:NL:RVS:2021:1626 and ECLI:NL:RVS:2021:1627, 28 July 2021, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/4btJzoD.
[9] KST 32317, No 719, 30 September 2019. The extension of the decision term is done by declaring the cases on to be of a complex factual and legal matter (Article 42(4)(a) Aliens Law 2000).
[10] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Verslag feitenonderzoek naar statushouders in Griekenland juni 2022’, 24 June 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3HOcBD0.
[11] IB 2022/84 Griekse statushouders, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3WwmFor.
[12] KST 30573, nr. 195, 7 November 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3BKuHC5.
[13] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Verslag feitenonderzoek naar statushouders in Griekenland september 2024’, 3 September 2024, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3BXU4DI.
[14] Regional Court Haarlem, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2022:13464, 11 November 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/49L3DRH; Regional Court Utrecht, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2024:9104, 11 June 2024, available in Dutch at: bit.ly/3ZJ5iE0. The Dutch Council for Refugees knows of two other cases in which the IND intended to declare the asylum request inadmissible but decided not after the view of the asylum lawyer. Regional Court Middelburg, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2023:19330, 6 December 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/48rppcb. Regional Court Utrecht, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2024:9104, 11 June 2024, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3Prdnso.
[15] Regional Court Roermond, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2022:3491, 12 April 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3SGK7z4 and Regional Court Groningen, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2024:10915, 15 July 2024, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3DM62Rx.
[16] Internal information message IND 2025/20 Griekse statushouders, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/49vNS2x.
[17] Regional Court Roermond, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:20337, 3 November 2025, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3YtXgPg; Regional Court Rotterdam, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:22749, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3YpB8Wd.
[18] CJEU, C-753/22, QY v Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 18 June 2024, available at: bit.ly/4fzrJkU.
[19] IB 2024/37 Hofuitspraak beoordeling asielaanvraag statushouders, available in Dutch at: bit.ly/4j2CTSm.
[20] E.g. Regional Court The Hague, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:21083, 6 November 2025, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/48Ty3DF; and Regional Court Groningen, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:19029, 17 October 2025, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/49UP5SU.
[21] Council of State, ECLI:NL:RVS:2020:1088, 22 April 2020, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3OC6zYK.
[22] Regional Court Middelburg, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2024:1944, 13 February 2024, available in Dutch at: bit.ly/4gREUPj; Regional Court Utrecht, Decision No NL24.3767, NL24.3769, NL24.3771, NL24.3773 and NL24.3775, 13 March 2024, not published on a publicly available website.
[23] CJEU, C‑673/19, M, A, Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid v Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid, T, 24 February 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3HV1p6A.