THEMATIC BRIEFING: October 2025 Statelessness determination and protection in Europe: good practice, challenges and risks Access to legal aid Legal aid should be offered to all applicants on the same basis as asylum applicants. If State funded legal aid is available, it should be provided to stateless claimants. If there is no State funded legal aid but asylum claimants can access legal aid free of charge, the same level of access should be provided to stateless people. Access to legal aid varies greatly between countries. Some offer no legal aid at all for a statelessness application, while others make it subject to a strict eligibility test. In Hungary and Ukraine, free legal aid is available to all applicants at all stages of the procedure. In several countries, access to legal aid is restricted to applicants who meet strict income or residence requirements, excluding many stateless people who lack documentation or lawful status. This is the case in Switzerland, where legal aid is only available to those who meet low-income requirements and applicants must also show they have some prospect of success. In France, legal aid is only available to those with lawful and habitual residence, with no exemption for SDP applicants (unlike for asylum seekers), and in Spain it is only accessible to those admitted to an asylum reception centre. In parts of the United Kingdom (England and Wales), applicants for statelessness leave only qualify for legal aid if they are unaccompanied minors or, in some cases, survivors of trafficking or qualify for Exceptional Cases Funding, but this is difficult to access in practice. In Italy and Latvia, legal aid is deemed unnecessary for administrative procedures and is only available in judicial procedures. In some countries, such as in Türkiye, legal aid is foreseen in law, but it is unclear whether stateless applicants can access it in practice. Some countries do not provide legal aid for statelessness procedures in their legal frameworks and rely on NGOs and UNHCR to provide legal assistance (e.g. Bulgaria, Czechia, Georgia, Kosovo, and Montenegro), raising concerns about sustainability and limited capacity. Access to an interview, interpretation, and translation Applicants for statelessness status should always have the right to an individual interview, and to (free) interpreting and translation during the process. In Hungary and Moldova, interviews are mandatory in all cases and interpreters are provided if required. In Albania, Bulgaria, Czechia, Italy (judicial procedure), Kosovo, Türkiye and Ukraine, all applicants have the right to an interview, and interpretation is available in most countries although it is unclear whether it is offered consistently in practice. In Georgia, interviews are not mandatory and are at the competent authority’s discretion but, in practice they are held in most cases, and UNHCR and the Ombudsperson may attend interviews. In Latvia, France, and the United Kingdom, interviews are permitted but only take place in certain circumstances, usually where the decision-maker requires further information. In the United Kingdom, there are examples of applications being refused without interview, as well as applicants being unable to attend interviews due to travel costs. A UNHCR audit revealed that interviews occurred in only 2% of the cases audited. In other countries, including Belgium, Montenegro, Spain, and Switzerland, interviews are not guaranteed, and decisions may be based solely on written evidence. Time-limits and reasoning of the decisions States are encouraged to incorporate safeguards to issue first instance decisions in writing with reasons, not more than six months from submission of an application, or 12 months in exceptional circumstances. 51 In Albania, Czechia, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, and Ukraine, the authorities must examine an application within six months, although this can be extended with exceptional reasoning. The time limit is even shorter in Latvia, Spain, and Türkiye (three months), although these can be extended in complex cases and are often surpassed. 17