Language of document :

Request for a preliminary ruling from the Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Austria) lodged on 16 January 2020 — XY

(Case C-18/20)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Verwaltungsgerichtshof

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: XY

Defendant: Bundesamt für Fremdenwesen und Asyl

Questions referred

Do the phrases ‘new elements or findings’ that ‘have arisen or have been presented by the applicant’ in Article 40(2) and 40(3) of Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection (recast) 1 (‘the Procedures Directive’) also cover circumstances that already existed before the previous asylum procedure was definitively concluded?

If the answer to Question 1 is in the affirmative:

In a case in which new facts or evidence come to light which could not have been relied on in the earlier procedure through no fault of the foreign national, is it sufficient that an asylum applicant is able to request the re-opening of a previous procedure which has been definitively concluded?

If the applicant is at fault for not having relied in the previous asylum procedure upon the newly invoked grounds, is the authority allowed to deny substantive examination of a subsequent application on the basis of a national standard laying down a principle which is generally applicable in the administrative procedure, even though, in the absence of the adoption of special standards, the Member State has not correctly transposed Article 40(2) and 40(3) of the Procedures Directive and, as a consequence, has also not made express use of the possibility granted by Article 40(4) of the Procedures Directive to provide for an exception from substantive examination of the subsequent application?

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1 OJ 2013 L 180, p. 60.