The Constitutional Court mandates an individual review of family reunification requests despite the withdrawal of asylum procedures.
Austria is witnessing new legal developments in the family reunification file following a ruling by the Constitutional Court VfGH that ended an administrative mechanism that allowed for the automatic suspension of family reunification requests in the event of ongoing procedures to withdraw asylum status. This development comes at a time when Vienna's schools are facing increasing pressure due to the rising number of students who do not master the German language upon entering the first grade.
According to circulating data, nearly half of first-grade students in Vienna schools are facing difficulties in following lessons, which has led to the expansion of language support and special education programs at the expense of regular education, amid a clear shortage of educational and human resources. According to information published by the exxpress newspaper, the pace of family reunification requests has risen again, following a ruling issued by the Constitutional Court on December 16, 2025, under number E 1209/2025 ua. The ruling annulled a previous decision by the Federal Administrative Court BVwG, and confirmed that the mere existence of a procedure to withdraw asylum does not justify an automatic rejection of family reunification requests, but imposes a requirement for an objective assessment of each case individually.
This decision particularly affects the families of Syrian refugees, as the figures indicate that there are more than 8,900 asylum withdrawal procedures pending for Syrian citizens until the beginning of January 2026. In 2025, only about 1,600 procedures were resolved, which is an average of about 130 decisions per month, meaning thousands of files remain open for long periods. These figures show that the majority of these procedures will remain suspended throughout 2026, which legally opens the door for accepting family reunification requests, especially in cases where the duration of the procedures is prolonged without a final resolution. According to the interpretation of the Constitutional Court, the continued separation of families for long periods may constitute a violation of the right to family life guaranteed under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In this context, non-governmental organizations, according to exxpress, have begun to widely challenge rejection decisions, submitting new applications and hiring lawyers to secure legal assistance for family reunification applicants, especially in the capital Vienna. For its part, the Austrian government had issued a regulation suspending the consideration of family reunification applications temporarily until the end of September 2026. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the ruling of the Constitutional Court does not annul this procedure. However, legal experts believe that the regulation represents a postponement of decisions, not a final ban, and that its expiration will require authorities to consider all pending applications.
The ruling indicates that exceptions will increase as the duration of asylum withdrawal procedures lengthens, especially in cases involving children or entire families, which may lead to positive decisions being issued before the end of the government suspension period. The proposed scenarios estimate that the period until the fall of 2026 may witness dozens or even hundreds of individual family reunification decisions, with broader effects expected after the suspension ends, with thousands of applications ready for adjudication. This is expected to have direct implications for schools, kindergartens, and social services, especially in Vienna.