In Case C-560/23, Tang (H v Udlændingestyrelsen), the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) is being asked to interpret the six-month transfer deadline under Article 29 of Regulation 604/2013 (the Dublin III Regulation).
The case was referred to the Court by the Refugee Appeals Board of Denmark (Flygtningenævnet), its first-ever preliminary reference, and concerned whether the six-month deadline for transferring an asylum seeker resets when a national appeals body remits the case and a new transfer decision is issued.
In an Opinion delivered by Advocate General Richard de la Tour, he concluded that the six-month deadline does not reset following a remittal and new decision. Instead, the deadline begins from the date the responsible Member State (in this case, Romania) accepted the transfer request and is only suspended (not reset nor restarted) by judicial review with suspensive effect. For him, as Denmark did not complete the transfer within the original timeframe, it became responsible for examining H’s asylum application.
Background and Facts
The applicant, H, an Afghan national, entered Denmark on 25 April 2021 and applied for asylum the same day. However, Eurodac data revealed that he had previously lodged an asylum application in Romania on 5 March 2021, the month before entering Denmark. On this basis, Denmark requested Romania to take back H under Article 18(1)(c) of the Dublin III Regulation. Romania accepted the request on 7 July 2021, and Denmark issued a transfer decision on 19 July 2021.
H appealed the transfer decision to the Refugee Appeals Board, which granted suspensive effect to the appeal. Before the appeal was resolved, Romania announced on 28 February 2022 that it would suspend all ‘Dublin’ transfers from 1 March 2022, due to the Russian invasion in Ukraine and increased refugee inflows into Romania from Ukraine.
On 15 March 2022, the Refugee Appeals Board remitted the case to the Immigration Service of Denmark (Udlændingestyrelsen) for reconsideration in light of Romania’s suspension of transfers. The Immigration Service issued a new transfer decision on 8 April 2022, which H again appealed. Romania lifted its suspension on 24 May 2022, and the Refugee Appeals Board upheld the transfer decision on 2 December 2022.
Given these facts, H argued that the six-month deadline for executing the transfer had expired by the time of the second decision of the Immigration Service, meaning that Denmark had become responsible for examining the asylum claim under Article 29(2) of the Dublin III Regulation. The Refugee Appeals Board disagreed, reasoning that the six-month period should be calculated from the final decision of 2 December 2022, not from the date of the original accept of the transfer by Romania in July 2021.
The Refugee Appeals Board made a request for a preliminary ruling – the body’s first ever – to the CJEU, asking whether the six-month deadline resets following a remittal and new decision, especially when suspensive effect is granted and external events disrupt the transfer process.
Opinion of AG Richard de la Tour
AG Richard de la Tour began by reaffirming the strict and objective nature of the six-month deadline under Article 29(1) of the Dublin III Regulation, in that for him, it designed to ensure legal certainty and procedural efficiency in the ‘Dublin’ system. The AG emphasised that the deadline begins to run from the acceptance of the transfer request by the responsible Member State, and not from the date of any subsequent administrative or judicial decision.
He drew on the Court’s established case-law, including, which for him underscored the non-negotiable character of the time limits in the Dublin III Regulation. He stated that these deadlines were not merely administrative guidelines, but are binding obligations that determine which Member State is responsible for processing an application.
The AG acknowledged that judicial review and the granting of suspensive effect are essential procedural rights at national level under Article 27 of the Dublin III Regulation. However, he draws a crucial distinction: while suspensive effect pauses the running of the six-month period, it does not reset it.
Therefore, he found that the remittal of the case by the Refugee Appeals Board and the issuance of a new transfer decision do not justify a fresh six-month period. Instead, the original deadline, starting from 7 July 2021, when Romania accepted the transfer, remained applicable, subject only to suspension during the period of judicial review.
The AG also considered the argument that Romania’s suspension of transfers might constitute force majeure under Article 29(2) of the Dublin III Regulation, which allows for an extension of the deadline to up to one year. However, he stressed that force majeure must be formally invoked and must meet a high threshold, namely, that the transfer was objectively impossible due to unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances. In this case, Denmark did not formally invoke force majeure, and the AG found no evidence that the conditions were met. Thus, Romania’s temporary suspension, while disruptive, does not automatically justify an extension of the deadline.
Analysis
Whilst I previously wrote (see here) that the referring body in this case, the Refugee Appeals Board of Denmark (Flygtningenævnet), should not have the case deemed admissible because it is not a ‘court’ or ‘tribunal’ for the purposes of Article 267 TFEU, the Opinion did not deal with this question at all. The Court may still wish to deal with this issue in its judgment, and it would be an oversight if it did not.
Substantively, the AG was clearly of the view that allowing the six-month deadline in the Dublin III Regulation to be reset with each new decision would undermine this objective and could lead to arbitrary delays. This interpretation ensures that Member States cannot circumvent the deadline by issuing successive decisions or exploiting procedural remittals. For him, the rights of persons might be compromised if there was not to be a strict interpretation of Article 29(1) of the Dublin III Regulation.
The result is therefore clear: Member States must act within the original time frame as demanded by Article 29(1) of the Dublin III Regulation, or they otherwise assuming responsibility for the application.
For the applicant in this case, AG Richard de la Tour found that the six-month deadline does not restart following a remittal and new decision, and that the deadline begins from the date of the responsible Member State’s acceptance of the transfer request, and is only suspended (not reset) by judicial review with suspensive effect. Accordingly, the original deadline was binding, and that Denmark became responsible for examining H’s asylum application once the six-month period expired.
Read the Opinion
The Opinion of Advocate General Richard de la Tour in Case C-560/23, Tang (H v Udlændingestyrelsen), referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union by the Refugee Appeals Board of Denmark (Flygtningenævnet), delivered on 8 May 2025, can be read here.