Transit zones in the EU: The CJEU judgment in joined cases C-50/24 to C-56/24 (X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides)

https://doi.org/10.63189/XCQH7230

Europe has been facing the grave issue of illegal migration into the EU territory for more than a decade. This notion has been addressed in various ways by the EU institutions, including the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Illegal migration has also been a subject of a heated political debates, both on the EU level and within the members states of the Union. This pressing problem was also subject to examination by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)^[1] and the domestic courts of the EU member states. One of the crucial aspects regarding migration is the necessity to secure humane conditions of placement for the illegal migrants, and in particular asylum seekers and refugees. In this connection transit zones have been under particular scrutiny.

The conditions of detention in transit zones was regulated within the EU secondary law^[2] and by the CJEU case-law.^[3] The issue was also subject to numerous requests for a preliminary rulings by the Court.^[4]

The request for preliminary ruling in joined cases C-50/24^[5], C-51/24^[6], C-52/24^[7], C-53/24^[8], C-54/24^[9], C-55/24^[10] and C-56/24^[11] was lodged on 26 January 2024. The joined cases concerned the same issue. As the CJEU stressed, the relevant facts were essentially identical to those set out in the summary of Case C-50/24. Only the dates were slightly different.^[12] The cases were examined following the request for a preliminary ruling from the Conseil du contentieux des étrangers (Belgium) – X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides. Recently, on 16^th April 2026, the Court issued a judgment^[13] regarding the above joined cases.

The joined cases raised the issue of third-country nationals who all lodged applications for international protection at the border on the day of their arrival. In each of those cases, the refuse of entry was followed by a decisions ‘to detain in an assigned place at the border’ and then ‘to detain in an assigned place’ were adopted in respect of the applicants prior to the adoption of decisions ‘to refuse refugee status and refuse subsidiary protection status’, which are the contested decisions.^[14]

The questions raised by the referring Court, mostly concerned the interpretation of Directive 2013/32/EU.^[15] The Conseil du Contentieux des Étrangers (Council for Asylum and Immigration Proceedings) formulated five questions for a preliminary ruling. The main issues focused on art. 43 of the Directive 2013/32/EU. This provision was examined in the context of determining whether detention during procedure for examining an application for international protection may occur in a place located geographically in the national territory but treated by legislation as a place at the border. The questions also referred to the four-week period laid down in art. 43(2). Furthermore, The Court wanted to determine whether the same place of detention, may initially be treated by legislation as a place at the border and, after the applicant has been authorised to enter the national territory, it could be regarded as a place in the national territory.^[16]

The CJEU in its judgment stressed that art. 43 of Directive 2013/32 means that if the applicant, who for the duration of the procedure for examining an application for international protection is detained in a place in the territory of the Member State concerned which is not geographically located at the border of that State, but which is treated by the national legislation as a place at that border, falls within the scope of Article 43.^[17] In clearer terms the place of detention, understood as “place at the border”, may be located elsewhere, in a different facility, not necessarily located at the border.

Regarding the second question, CJEU stated that art. 43 of Directive 2013/32 means that the examination of an application for international protection, after the four-week period has expired, no longer falls within the scope of art. 43, but falls within the scope of the other provisions of that directive.^[18] In practice, this provision does not preclude the same place of detention from being treated initially as a ‘place at the border’ and subsequently, after the applicant has been authorised to enter the territory on account of the expiry of the four-week period laid down in Article 43(2) of that directive, from being regarded as a ‘place in the territory’.^[19]

In this vein, art. 43 of the Directive enables detention of the application for international protection in the very same place in which he was detained, understood as “place at the border”, after the four-week period has expired. The CJEU stressed however, that the detaining member state must ensure that that applicant is informed, at the latest when the decision keeping him or her in detention, of the change in his or her legal situation, namely that as a result of the expiry of that period he or she is authorised to enter the territory and, that he or she is to be provided with the document referred to in art. 6(1) of Directive 2013/33 or equivalent evidence.^[20] The Court also added that the continued detention of an applicant for international protection and the change in the legal classification of the place of that detention, after the expiry of the four-week period, has the effect of lifting the material and temporal limitations resulting from art. 43.^[21]

The CJEU added that art. 31 para 7 and art. 43 of Directive 2013/32 should be understood as not precluding the examination of an application for international protection initiated in the border procedure or, not precluding authority from relying on investigative steps carried out as part of that procedure, in line with the basic principles and guarantees set out in Chapter II of Directive 2013/32.^[22]

The judgment in joined cases in joined cases C-50/24 to C-56/24 (X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides) reflects that CJEU does not seem to be interpreting Directive 2013/32 in excessively restrictive manner and focuses on maintaining its scope and standards. Within the EU legal framework and human rights law, it is crucial to satisfy the requirements of protection for the persons in the transit zones. The judgment clearly states that it should be a secondary matter, whether the “place at the border”, is actually located elsewhere, not necessarily located at the border. Certainly this judgment should be interpreted in connection with other request for preliminary ruling, especially, where the conditions of detention come into play (e.g. in C-217/25 and C-218/18).^[23]

^[1] Apart from the wide ECtHR jurisprudence in this area, nine Member States of the Council of Europe published a joint letter in May 2025; see: Joint letter of Denmark, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to the ECtHR, 22 May 2025, [Online]. Available at: https://www.governo.it/sites/governo.it/files/Lettera_aperta_22052025.pdf (Accessed: 15 May 2026).

The letter was later followed by the Joint Statement to the Conference of Ministers of Justice of the Council of Europe; see: Joint Statement to the Conference of Ministers of Justice of the Council of Europe, 10 December 2025, [Online]. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-to-the-conference-of-ministers-of-justice-of-the-council-of-europe (Accessed: 15 May 2026), Mommittee of Ministers CoE, Chişinău Declaration, 15 May 2025, CM(2026)99-final [Online]. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/pdf/09125948802bc2cc (Accessed: 22 May 2026).

^[2] Directive 2013/33/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection; Directive (EU) 2024/1346 of the European Parliament and of the Council, 14 May 2024 laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection.

^[3] CJEU Judgment C-808/18, European Commission v Hungary, 17 December 2020.

^[4] Case C-217/25, Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of

the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, lodged 20 March 2025. https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/document/C/2025/C-0217-25-00000000RP-01-P-01/DDP/300624-EN-1-pdf; Case C-218/25, Request for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank Den Haag, zittingsplaats Amsterdam (Netherlands), lodged 20 March 2025 – BC v Minister van Asiel en Migratie, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:C_202502846; see also: Czepek, J., (2026) Questions on standards for transit zones: The CJEU Request for preliminary ruling in C-217/25 and C-218/25; CEA blog, Available at: https://doi.org/10.63189/OSDY4206 (Accessed: 15 May 2026).

^[5] Case C‑50/24 [Danané], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides (Request for a preliminary ruling from the Conseil du Contentieux des Étrangers), 16 April 2026.

^[6] Case C-51/24 [Jalal], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides.

^[7] Case C-52/24 [Tartous], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides.

^[8] Case C-53/24 [Daraa], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides.

^[9] Case C-54/24 [Rabat], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides.

^[10] Case C-55/24, [Casablanca], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides.

^[11] Case C-56/24 [Zawiya], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides.

^[12] Case C-51/24 [Jalal], Summary of the Request for a Preliminary Ruling.

^[13] CJEU Judgment in Joined Cases C-50/24 to C-56/24 [Danané and Others], X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides, 16 April 2026.

^[14] Case C-50/24 [Danané], Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling, para 1.

^[15] Directive 2013/33/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection.

^[16] Case C-50/24 [Danané], para 58.

^[17] X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides, Sentence of the Judgment para. 1.

^[18] Ibid., para 2.

^[19] Ibid.

^[20] Ibid.

^[21] Ibid.

^[22] Ibid., para 3.

^[23] See: Czepek, 2026.