Addressing statelessness in Europe’s refugee response Serbian context, participants recognised that return procedures could be problematic for people without a State to return to; that children born on the move, especially to lone mothers, could face problems confirming or obtaining a nationality; and that family reunion could be problematic for those who had no proof of their family relationships. In Greece, civil society actors who worked with stateless refugees reiterated some of the key issues raised by stateless refugees interviewed, including delays in asylum determination, procedures being influenced by ‘bias in the system’, and the seemingly very common challenge of mis-recording of nationality in registration procedures: ‘It appears that they are not recording new arrivals as ‘stateless’ and are more likely to include either the country of origin or country of last residence under the category of nationality.’ (INGO interviewed in Greece) ‘We have spent a lot of time trying to correct the nationality status of bidoon from Kuwait to 'stateless' after they were registered as 'Iraqi'.’ (Volunteer organisation interviewed in Greece) In the Netherlands, residence and registration as a stateless person were deemed to be the main challenges that impact on a person’s rights to access social security, education, work, family reunion and even public transport. The emotional and psychological impact of statelessness was also discussed by some participants, with one saying it causes ‘a lot of anger’ and another that it impacts on a sense of belonging: ‘This is what you hear very often from stateless people, that they don't belong anywhere.’ (Lawyer interviewed in the Netherlands) Community representatives in the Netherlands said they felt there was no-one standing up for their rights, that with the lack of knowledge and willingness on the part of the authorities to help them, they had no-one to ‘lean on’, so it was more difficult to organise and find out about their rights. Key challenges and opportunities Participants were asked what challenges and opportunities existed for addressing the statelessness related issues they raised in their context. In Greece, civil society actors were distrustful of national and regional authorities, noting ‘prejudices of civil servants’ (Lawyer interviewed in Greece) and that statelessness was ‘very difficult to address when we don’t know how the police and Frontex are operating’ (INGO interviewed in Greece). They noted frequent complaints by stateless people of not being listened to by the authorities and not enough time or resources being invested in decision-making. Capacity-building and awareness-raising with authorities is therefore a key need. Few current activities to address statelessness were mentioned, with little specific programmatic response, but rather individual actors following-up on individual cases where statelessness has been missed or an asylum claim refused. Where opportunities were noted was around work by communities themselves, where use of social media and information exchange on the ground, with the support of legal actors, was critical. It was suggested that more resources should be invested in grassroots initiatives, trusted by affected populations. Another opportunity identified was to link in to the work of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA): 11