effective mechanisms to identify and protect stateless people.
(i)
Statelessness determination procedures that do not lead to a protection
status
In Belgium, there is a judicial procedure through which statelessness can be
determined by the family courts, but recognition does not lead to automatic
residence or 1954 Convention rights. Recognised stateless people must
apply for permission to stay on humanitarian grounds and there are no
established criteria for this. The length of any residence permit granted is at
the discretion of the Immigration Office, but generally a renewable one-year
permit is granted. Applicants who do not have a residence permit on any
other basis face a risk of detention and expulsion, are not entitled to work
and are entitled only to urgent medical assistance.
(ii)
Toleration status
In Germany, Poland, and Slovenia, people recognised as stateless who
cannot be returned to another country may be issued with a ‘tolerated stay’
permit, which is usually of short duration (six months to two years) and
renewable. Some rights may be granted, for example, to work or basic social
assistance, education, and healthcare, but rights are generally restricted and
not in line with the treatment afforded to stateless people under the 1954
Convention and international human rights law.
(iii) Other routes to regularisation
In most countries, there are ad hoc or established routes through which
some stateless people may be able to regularise their stay in the country and
access some rights, for example, in the context of applications for asylum,
residence permits, or acquisition of nationality. In Austria, Croatia, Cyprus,
Greece, Ireland, and Norway, there is no dedicated SDP, but statelessness
may be identified in the context of other administrative procedures. However,
statelessness determination is not the specific objective of these mechanisms
and regularisation rarely leads to any rights linked to statelessness per se.
The protection available to stateless migrants therefore depends on the rights
attached to the type of residence or protection status they can acquire and is
usually not in line with the 1954 Convention and international human rights
law. In Malta and North Macedonia, there are other routes to regularisation
for some stateless people, but there are no mechanisms to identify
statelessness beyond the ad hoc possibility of recording someone as stateless
during international protection procedures.
In Czech Republic, national law designates the Ministry of Interior as the
competent authority to decide on applications under the 1954 Convention,
but no further detail is provided on how a determination should be carried
out, and no status or rights are granted to the person recognised as stateless.
In the Netherlands, people with a residence permit who can evidence their
statelessness may be registered as stateless in the population register. This
gives rise to some additional rights including a travel document, and an
accelerated route to naturalisation. However, this does not entail a thorough