3/4/22, 10:54 AM CURIA - Documents The questions referred for a preliminary ruling must be answered in the light of those considerations. The first question By its first question, the referring court asks, in essence, whether the second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83 must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to assess whether UNRWA’s protection or assistance has ceased, so that a person may claim ipso facto ‘refugee status’ for the purposes of that provision, account must be taken only of the relevant circumstances as they exist at the time of that person’s departure from the UNRWA area of operations, or also of the circumstances as they exist at the time when the competent authorities consider an application for refugee status or the judicial authorities concerned rule on the appeal against a decision refusing to grant such status. In order to answer that question, it must be noted that, according to the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83, a third-country national or a stateless person is excluded from being a refugee ‘if he or she falls within the scope of [Article 1(D)] of the Geneva Convention, relating to protection or assistance from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’. The first paragraph of Article 1(D) of the Geneva Convention provides that that convention is not to apply to persons who ‘are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ protection or assistance. UNRWA is a United Nations agency which was set up to protect and assist Palestinians in their capacity as ‘Palestine refugees’. Its mandate, which has been extended until 30 June 2023, covers its area of operations which consists in five fields, namely the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Thus, any person, such as NB and AB, who is registered with UNRWA, is eligible to receive protection and assistance from that agency in the interests of his or her well-being as a refugee (see, to that effect, judgment of 25 July 2018, Alheto, C‑585/16, EU:C:2018:584, paragraph 84). On account of that specific refugee status established in those territories of the Near East for Palestinians, persons registered with UNRWA are, in principle, by virtue of the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2014/83, which corresponds to the first paragraph of Article 1(D) of the Geneva Convention, excluded from refugee status in the European Union (judgment of 13 January 2021, Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Refugee status of a stateless person of Palestinian origin), C‑507/19, EU:C:2021:3, paragraph 49 and the case-law cited). In addition, it follows from the second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83, which corresponds to the second paragraph of Article 1(D) of the Geneva Convention, that, when an applicant for international protection in the European Union no longer receives protection or assistance from UNRWA, that exclusion ceases to apply (judgment of 13 January 2021, Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Refugee status of a stateless person of Palestinian origin), C‑507/19, EU:C:2021:3, paragraph 50 and the case-law cited). Thus, the second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83 applies where it becomes evident, based on an assessment, on an individual basis, of all the relevant evidence, that the personal safety of the stateless person of Palestinian origin concerned is at serious risk and that it is impossible for UNRWA, whose assistance was requested by that person, to guarantee that the living conditions of that individual would be compatible with its mission, and that person is forced to leave the UNRWA area of operations owing to circumstances beyond his or her control and independent or his or volition. In that case, that stateless person may – unless he or she falls within the scope of any of the grounds for exclusion set out in Article 12(1)(b), Article 12(2) and Article 12(3) of that directive – ipso facto be entitled to the benefits of that directive, without necessarily having to demonstrate a well-founded fear of being persecuted, within the meaning of Article 2(c) of that directive (judgment of 13 January 2021, Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Refugee status of a stateless person of Palestinian origin), C‑507/19, EU:C:2021:3, paragraph 51 and the case-law cited). It should, however, be noted, in that regard, that the fact that the persons concerned are ipso facto entitled to the benefits of Directive 2004/83 within the meaning of Article 12(1)(a) does not entail an unconditional right to refugee status. Indeed, although a person who is ipso facto entitled to the benefits of Directive 2004/83 is not necessarily required to show that he or she has a fear of being persecuted within the meaning of Article 2(c) of that directive, he or she must nevertheless submit – as did the applicants in the main proceedings – an application for refugee status, which must be examined by the competent authorities of the Member State responsible (see, to that effect, judgment of 19 December 2012, Abed El Karem El Kott and Others, C‑364/11, EU:C:2012:826, paragraphs 75 and 76). That being so, as the Advocate General observed, in essence, in point 52 of his Opinion, while Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83 does not specifically indicate what point in time is relevant for the assessment, by the competent national authorities or courts, of the cessation of UNRWA’s assistance or protection, the use of the phrase ‘are at present receiving’ in the first paragraph of Article 1(D) of the Geneva Convention and ‘has ceased’ in the second paragraph of that provision, favours an assessment that seeks to determine whether that assistance or protection has actually ceased, within the meaning of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83. In those circumstances, such an evaluation must be based on an individual assessment of all the relevant evidence or factors of the situation in question as it exists at the time of the departure of the applicants concerned from the UNRWA area of operations, while taking into account the circumstances as they exist at the time when the competent administrative authorities take their decision on the application for refugee status lodged by the person concerned or the judicial authorities concerned rule on the appeal against a decision refusing to grant refugee status. Account must be taken, in particular, of the situation in which the person concerned is able to return to the UNRWA area of operations in that the circumstances which led to that person qualifying as a refugee no longer exist (see, to that effect, judgments of 19 December 2012, Abed El Karem El Kott and Others, C‑364/11, EU:C:2012:826, paragraph 77, https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=254962&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=1850357 6/10