THEMATIC BRIEFING | SEPTEMBER 2021 Statelessness determination and protection in Europe 9 Narrow definition of a stateless person Some countries have a definition of a stateless person in law that is narrower than Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention. For example, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Serbia, Hungary, Latvia, and Slovenia define a stateless person as someone who is not considered as a national by any State ‘according to its legislation’ or ‘under its laws’ (or a similar formulation), rather than ‘under the operation of its law’, removing the vital consideration of how laws are applied in practice by the authorities of the relevant State. Furthermore, the definition of a stateless person in the Spanish version of the 1954 Convention is more restrictive than the English and French versions, which has led to the courts in Spain issuing judgments stating that a stateless person is a person who does not have the right to acquire a nationality.30 Grounds for exclusion that go beyond the 1954 Convention The 1954 Convention only permits States to withhold protection from people excluded under an exhaustive list of grounds.31 However, Bulgaria, Hungary, Switzerland, Latvia, and the United Kingdom have established grounds to exclude people from protection as a stateless person, either explicitly in the definition of a stateless person or in other provisions, which in practice unduly exclude some stateless people from the protection of the 1954 Convention. In Hungary, an applicant under the SDP is automatically excluded from statelessness status if it is deemed their stay ‘violates or endangers the national security of Hungary’.32 Until a Constitutional Court ruling in 2015, people who were not lawfully resident in Hungary were excluded from protection as a stateless person.33 The Court’s decision was later reinforced by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that limiting access to the SDP to those lawfully staying in the country prevented vulnerable stateless people from effectively accessing the protection to which they were entitled. 34 In Switzerland, the authorities only recognise people as stateless if they have lost their nationality through no fault of their own (or their parents) and have no means of reinstating it.35 The individual must also demonstrate an interest worthy of protection (schutzwürdiges Interesse), which means they must show that they would be in a better position if recognised as stateless, and this is interpreted very restrictively in practice.36 In the United Kingdom, the definition of a stateless person does not align with the 1954 Convention. The grounds for exclusion go further than those in the 1954 Convention, for example, people who have equivalent rights to a national in a country of former habitual residence may be treated as not stateless, rather than as stateless persons who may be able to live elsewhere.37