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The applicants are an Armenian couple who entered Belgium in 2010 and applied for asylum. At the initial interview aimed at determining their situation regarding the Dublin Regulation, they declared that the parents of one of them lived in Belgium. The Belgian authorities found out that both applicants had obtained visas from the Italian embassy in Armenia before arriving in Belgium, although they had never travelled to Italy. The Belgian authorities ordered the applicants to leave the country.

The applicant in the main proceedings is a Togolese national whose asylum application was rejected in Luxembourg. She was granted tolerated status after the birth of her twin children. They were granted French citizenship shortly afterwards as their father was a French citizen. Ms. Alopka and her children remained in Luxembourg living in a shelter for families without resources. Later on, she applied for residence. Her application was rejected and she was ordered to leave the country. In the course of appeals proceedings, she also presented an employment offer she got.

The French Conseil d'État adjudicated in December 2012 on three cases concerning female genital mutilation (FGM) and overruled the jurisprudence of the Cour nationale du droit d'asile. The Conseil d'État has decided that girls born in France threatened with FGM can constitute, under certain circumstances, a social group in the sense of the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and can therefore be granted asylum.

The Meijers Committee published on 10 October 2012 a note on the amended proposal for a Regulation on the establishment of Eurodac. The new draft provides for the possibility to request comparison with Eurodac data by Member States law enforcement authorities and Europol. This was also proposed in 2009 but lapsed as a consequence of the Treaty of Lisbon.