Addressing statelessness in Europe’s refugee response identifying and recording nationality status did not appear to be clear or consistent, though some attempt was reported to have been made in 2017 to harmonise these functions across different locations and competent authorities. Language barriers and multi-stakeholder teams were factors according to one official who said the use of international staff to carry out interviews and Greek staff to enter data into IT systems was a source of mistakes, as well as interpreters allegedly encouraging applicants ‘to just sign’ interview records even if they do not agree with or understand their content. One interviewee implied that procedures for verifying nationality status were straightforward another said ‘errors’ were so common that they had two staff dedicated to amending basic data in the system. The lack of statelessness determination procedures was raised in all three contexts. In Greece, this led to some lack of clarity on the part of officials when asked what would happen if someone identified to be stateless was refused asylum. In Serbia, it was noted as a key gap: “Serbia does not have a statelessness determination procedure. We can only conclude that they are stateless, but we cannot identify them as stateless.” In the Netherlands, officials described the detailed procedure for registering a stateless person in the BRP population register as ‘a difficult process’, and noted it is only accessible to those with a residence permit and documentation to prove their statelessness (‘without documents, you will never be registered as stateless’). The lack of clarity around how and who should deal with those who cannot access this procedure was very apparent, as were other procedural challenges, including mistakes by other government departments, lack of expertise in some municipalities, and impossible documentation requirements to access naturalisation procedures even for those who manage to register as stateless. Officials in the Netherlands welcomed proposals for a centralised statelessness determination procedure and highlighted a need for more and better guidance but cautioned against models that could pose additional cost and other barriers. Access to information and resources There was a clear need across all sites for information and resources. In both Greece and the Netherlands, officials noted their reliance on limited country of origin information where less wellknown stateless profiles are concerned. Officials in the Netherlands made extensive reference to ‘checklists’, ‘rules’, and ‘guidance’ including ‘a manual for civil affairs (Handboek Burgerzaken Amsterdam) (for which a lot of municipalities have a subscription) in which a checklist is noted to determine statelessness’. There appeared to be specific resources available for Palestinian cases, but not necessarily for others: If they are Palestinian, then we know quite well which documents are needed because of guidelines provided by the Association of Civil Affairs and the Handbook Amsterdam.’ (Dutch official) Nonetheless, officials still referred to the lack of resources and specific information to guide decisions in what is a very complex process, particularly for less common or more complex cases: ‘The difficult thing about the civil registrations is that Amsterdam has around 180 nationalities, so you need to be able to apply 180 nationality laws… we try to stay up to date on everything, but it can be difficult to find relevant information in specific cases’. (Dutch official) 14