Since 4 July 2025, an amendment to Article 50 of the Belgian Law of 15 December 1980 on Foreign Nationals provides that any application for international protection lodged by a person already recognized as a refugee in another Member State of the European Union is to be treated as a “subsequent” application. In parallel, an amendment to the Reception Act of 12 January 2007 allows for the limitation or withdrawal of the right to material assistance if an applicant already benefits from international protection in another Member State of the European Union.
In practice, this reform excludes from accommodation refugees often recognized, for example, in Greece, but who there remain deprived of effective access to work, housing, or education. As a result, in Belgium, some families with children are sleeping on the streets.
This situation is of serious concern in light of Belgium’s international obligations. Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that the best interests of the child be a primary consideration. The European Court of Human Rights, in its judgment M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece (2011), had already condemned the transfer of applicants to Greece due to degrading reception conditions. Other rulings — both European and Belgian, notably from the Council for Alien Law Litigation — have since confirmed the persistence of deficiencies in certain Member States.
Belgium has also been judged by the United Nations for the detention of migrant children, with criticism focusing particularly on the serious impact of such practices on their physical and mental health. These arguments, mutatis mutandis, apply equally to children forced to sleep outside, exposed to cold, insecurity, and extreme hardship.
Denying accommodation to refugees whose safety is not guaranteed in the State that granted them protection does not reduce onward movements. Rather, it increases the vulnerability of those concerned and contributes to a downward harmonization of protection standards in Europe, running counter to the spirit of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum.
Céline Verbrouck
Attorney at Altea
Specialist in immigration Law and International Family Law
+32(0)2/894.45.70