EUROPEAN UNION AGENCY FOR ASYLUM 4.2. Ex lege nationality not (yet) formally recognised and nationality not currently held ‘Nationality’ refers to a nationality that is actual or current. Where an applicant has a nationality, even if they have no evidence to that effect, they are a national of that country, and the latter will serve as the country of reference for the asylum examination. You may encounter some cases where ex lege nationality is held by an applicant but not yet formally recognised. For the purpose of the asylum examination, it may, in certain cases, also be possible to consider a nationality which the applicant does not (yet) hold but that they can be reasonably expected to avail themself of. 4.2.1. Ex lege nationality not (yet) formally recognised As previously mentioned in Section 2.1. Modes of acquisition of nationality, a state’s nationality law may provide for ex lege (automatic) acquisition of nationality. In this case, a person will automatically become the national of that state, for example at birth, even if their (already existing) nationality has not yet been formally acknowledged. In other words, the fact that the person may have not (yet) taken steps to have their nationality recognised by their national authorities (e.g. by registering themself with their national authorities) does not detract from the fact that there is a legal bond with that country based on which they can be considered to be a national of that country. For example, a child was born abroad to parent(s) from a country which, by law, automatically grants nationality by descent (jus sanguinis) but no steps have yet been taken to register the birth with the national authorities. In this case, the child is not to be considered stateless as they, legally speaking, already hold said nationality, unless there are indications that their nationality will not be recognised in practice by the national authorities. Here, the national authorities are simply not aware of the child’s existence and therefore cannot formally confirm the nationality. In such a case, the country of nationality can be considered as the country of reference because the person is a national of that country, even if their nationality has not been formalised yet. Keep in mind that, in the context of the examination of the application for international protection, you are not carrying out the statelessness determination as such (see Section 2.5.2 Statelessness determination procedure), but you need to consider which country will be the country of reference to assess the need for international protection of the applicant. A person who holds the nationality of a state by the operation of a national law, but where COI shows that it is unlikely that the national authorities have considered or will consider them as a national, the person would be considered stateless. The country may still be considered as a country of reference though, depending on national practice (see Section 4.1.1. Arbitrary and discriminatory deprivation of nationality on different approaches). The fact that a person was denied a nationality has implications on the possibility for them to return to and to avail themself of the protection of that country that refuses in practice to recognise them as a national (see Section 6.Protection and nationality 36