JUDGMENT OF 13. 1. 2021 – CASE C-507/19
BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND (REFUGEE STATUS OF A STATELESS PERSON
OF
PALESTINIAN
ORIGIN)
Costs
82
Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the action pending
before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. Costs incurred in
submitting observations to the Court, other than the costs of those parties, are not recoverable.
On those grounds, the Court (Third Chamber) hereby rules:
1. The second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country
nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform
status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of
the protection granted must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to determine whether
the protection or assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has ceased, it is necessary to take into account, as part
of an individual assessment of all the relevant factors of the situation in question, all the
fields of UNRWA’s area of operations which a stateless person of Palestinian origin who has
left that area has a concrete possibility of accessing and safely remaining therein.
2. The second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95 must be interpreted as meaning
that UNRWA’s protection or assistance cannot be regarded as having ceased where a stateless
person of Palestinian origin left the UNRWA area of operations from a field in that area in
which his or her personal safety was at serious risk and in which UNRWA was not in a
position to provide that individual with protection or assistance, first, if that individual
voluntarily travelled to that field from another field in that area in which his or her personal
safety was not at serious risk and in which he or she could receive protection or assistance
from UNRWA and, secondly, if he or she could not reasonably expect, on the basis of the
specific information available to him or her, to receive protection or assistance from
UNRWA in the field to which he or she travelled or to be able to return at short notice to
the field from which he or she came, which is for the national court to verify.
[Signatures]
16
ECLI:EU:C:2021:3