Link: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-04/cp200040en.pdf

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Court of Justice of the European Union

PRESS RELEASE No 40/20

Luxembourg, 2 April 2020
Judgment in Joined Cases C-715/17, C-718/17 and C-719/17

Commission v Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic
 
By refusing to comply with the temporary mechanism for the relocation of applicants for international protection, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have failed to fulfil their obligations under European Union law. 

Those Member States can rely neither on their responsibilities concerning the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security, nor on the alleged malfunctioning of the relocation mechanism to avoid implementing that mechanism.  

In the judgment in Commission v Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (Temporary mechanism for the relocation of applicants for international protection) (C-715/17, C-718/17 and C-719/17), delivered on 2 April 2020, the Court upheld the actions for failure to fulfil obligations brought by the Commission against those three Member States seeking a declaration that, by failing to indicate at regular intervals, and at least every three months, an appropriate number of applicants for international protection who could be relocated swiftly to their respective territories and by consequently failing to implement their subsequent relocation obligations, those Member States had failed to fulfil their obligations under European Union law. First, the Court concluded that there had been an infringement, by the three Member States concerned, of a decision adopted by the Council with a view to the relocation, on a mandatory basis, from Greece and Italy of 120 000 applicants for international protection to the other Member States of the European Union.1 Secondly, the Court found that Poland and the Czech Republic had also failed to fulfil their obligations under an earlier decision that the Council had adopted with a view to the relocation, on a voluntary basis, from Greece and Italy of 40 000 applicants for international protection to the other Member States of the European Union.2 Hungary, for its part, was not bound by the relocation measures provided for under the latter decision.