On 1 March 2019, ENS and its Belgian member, NANSEN, submitted joint comments to the Home Affairs Committee of the Belgian Federal Parliament on a new proposal to grant stateless people residence rights in the country. The Parliament is currently in the accelerated process of reviewing the proposal, which aims to introduce a procedure for issuing residence permits to people recognised as stateless under Belgium’s existing statelessness determination procedure. The new Bill will now enable stateless people to enjoy the rights under the 1954 Convention that are subject to a residence condition. The Bill also aims to explicitly grant recognised stateless people the possibility of family reunification. NANSEN and ENS strongly welcome the proposal, and set out a series of recommendations for strengthening the Bill, to ensure it is in line with international standards and best practice on statelessness specific protection regimes.
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