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The official version of a reference by Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Austria) lodged on 20th June 2013 has been published as follows:

Is Article 4(5) of Council Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification 1 to be interpreted as precluding a provision under which spouses and registered partners must already have reached the age of 21 years at the time at which the application is submitted in order to be considered to be entitled to join other family members?

The United Kingdom's Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) has held that no inconsistency between the Qualification Directive (and the British legislation implementing it) and the Geneva Convention of 1951 arises from the fact that the former provides for the revocation of asylum status and the second does not contain any provision on revocation of refugee status.

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.