128 Swider and den Heijer adopted on the basis of Articles 78 and 79 TFEU contain protection regimes that are specifically tailored to stateless persons. In view of the close historical and legal ties between the protection regimes for refugees and stateless persons, it could be argued that, in the absence of an explicit legal basis in the Treaties, the Union’s common policy on stateless persons may be built on Art. 78 TFEU. However, and unless they fear persecution in their former country of habitual residence, stateless persons do not require the same type of protection as asylum seekers and refugees, as the key protections in the asylum context, namely against persecution and refoulement, are not at stake.102 On the national level, some EU Member States do group statelessness together with asylum-related procedures, but others do not. In France, for example, stateless persons and asylum seekers are assisted by the same state authority, the French Office for Protection of Refugees and Stateless persons.103 In the Netherlands, on the other hand, the residence status originally intended for stateless persons (buiten schuld-vergunning or ‘no fault permit’) is grouped together with ‘regular’ (non-asylum) residence statuses.104 In all likelihood, the objectives formulated in Art. 78 TFEU, referring to international protection, non-refoulement and the 1951 Refugee Convention and subdividing this into rules on ‘asylum’, ‘subsidiary protection’ and ‘temporary protection’—all terms with specific meanings in asylum law—are too narrow for adopting an integrated policy on statelessness.105 Alternatively, the flexibility clause (Art. 352 TFEU) in conjunction with Art. 67(2) TFEU has been suggested as possible legal basis.106 As described above, Article 67(2) TFEU formulates the aim of creating a common policy on asylum, immigration and external border control which is fair towards thirdcountry nationals and to that purpose equates stateless persons with thirdcountry nationals. The flexibility clause allows the Union’s competences to be adjusted to the objectives laid down by the Treaty when the latter has not provided the powers of action necessary to attain them. It could be argued that by mentioning stateless persons and equating their status to those of thirdcountry nationals, the Treaty brings statelessness within the scope of its 102 See UNHCR, Guidelines on Statelessness No. 2 (Geneva, UNHCR, 2012), para 26–30. 103 French Office for Protection of Refugees and Stateless persons (OFPRA), see more at www.ofpra.gouv.fr. 104 Vreemdelingenbesluit (Aliens Decree) 2000, art. 3.4 (1w). 105 Cf. Case C-130/10, Parliament v Council, para 42–45; CJEU 11 June 2014, Case C-377/12, Commission v Council, para 34. 106 See in Molnar, T., ‘Moving Statelessness Forward on the International Agenda’, 19 Tilburg Law Review (2014) 198, footnote 21. European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 101–135