Statelessness Working Paper Series 2017/04 a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results. The first set of questions deals with the application of Article 10 BNC for each asylum seeker category to monitor if the municipalities apply the law correctly. The second set of questions deals with the father’s filiation, which is important to monitor, as it is an essential condition for the child's acquisition of Syrian nationality. The third set of questions deals with their specific knowledge of the Belgian legislation on Article 10 BNC and the related jurisprudence as well as their knowledge of Syrian Nationality Law, to verify whether they can make an informed decision when implementing the law. The choice of questions was informed by preliminary conversations with the heads of the Birth and Nationality Department of the city of Liège on the implementation in their municipality of nationality law for children of asylum seekers, regardless of their status. As there are 589 municipalities in Belgium, the scope of this paper does not allow to review the implementation in all of them. The survey was submitted to 96 municipalities selected based on the share of Syrians residing in their municipality 98 and the number of available places for registered asylum seekers, according to the geographical ‘distribution plan’ for asylum-seekers.99 Only twelve municipalities answered the survey, five from Flanders, four from Wallonia, and three from the Brussels-capital region. Among those, four confirmed having received at least one visit of a Syrian to register the birth of their child. The fact that the other municipalities, to the knowledge of the responder, have not experienced such a situation can influence their knowledge of the applicable law. Nonetheless, it is important to assess their answers as well, due to the high number of Syrians and/or registered asylum seekers residing in their municipality who might give birth in the future. 6.2. Results and Analysis 6.2.1. On the Application of Article 10 BNC The main observation from the received answers is that there is no common practice of the municipalities in their application of Article 10 BNC. Municipalities do not systematically apply Article 10 BNC. Some of them acknowledge their lack of expertise and request the opinion from the SPF Justice and/or the Immigration Office. Overall, only very few municipalities grant Belgian nationality without further conditions being imposed, with the least being granted to children of illegal migrants (0) and the most being granted to children of recognised stateless parents (4). An interesting observation is that the majority of municipalities apply the same criteria for beneficiaries of international protection, regardless of their status (as recognised refugees or beneficiaries of subsidiary protection), which shows at least some consistency. Deviations from the principles of Article 10 BNC is common. Some municipalities require a statelessness judgment for the parents or the child, which is contrary to the jurisprudence. Though such document can indeed help assess the statelessness of the child, UNHCR highlighted in its report several deficiencies with the statelessness registration procedure in Belgium: the procedure is decentralised, practices vary among tribunals, varying standards of proof are applied, and the 98 FPS Economie - Direction Générale Statistique - Statistics Belgium, répartition par communes pour la nationalité syrienne au 1er janvier 2016, unpublished; Specific statistics on the geographical distribution of asylum seekers disaggregated by nationality could not be obtained from the Immigration Office. Similarly, statistics on residents in each municipality are not disaggregated by type of residence permit and their status therefore cannot be identified. 99 Het Laatse Nieuws, ‘In kaart: zoveel vluchtelingen vangt uw gemeente op’, 21 December 2015, http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/34662/Vluchtelingencrisis/article/detail/2563277/2015/12/21/In-kaart-zoveel-vluchtelingenvangt-uw-gemeente-op.dhtml. Le Soir, ‘Asile: le plan de répartition commune par commune (carte interactive)’, http://www.lesoir.be/1075792/article/actualite/belgique/2015-12-22/asile-plan-repartition-commune-par-communecarte-interactive. 15