X and X v Belgium (Opinion)

delivered on 7 February 2017 ( 1 ) See JUDGMENT: X and X (Judgment) [2017] EUECJ C-638/16 (07 March 2017)

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Conseil du contentieux des étrangers (Council for asylum and immigration proceedings) (Belgium))

This request for a preliminary ruling, made by the Conseil du contentieux des étrangers (Council for asylum and immigration proceedings) (Belgium), concerns the interpretation of Article 25(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (‘the Visa Code’) ( 2 ) and of Articles 4 and 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’).

The request has been made in proceedings between two Syrian nationals and their three young children, who reside in Aleppo (Syria), and the État belge (Belgian State) concerning that state’s refusal to grant them a visa with limited territorial validity, for the purposes of Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code, sought on humanitarian grounds.

It is, in my view, crucial that, at a time when borders are closing and walls are being built, the Member States do not escape their responsibilities, as they follow from EU law or, if you will allow me the expression, their EU law and our EU law.