Judgment_paragraph 57 · K.A. and Others v Belgische Staat (C-82/16)

57Consequently, while it is true that a refusal by a third-country national to comply with the obligation to return and to cooperate in the context of a removal procedure cannot enable him to avoid, in whole or in part, the legal effects of an entry ban (see, to that effect, judgment of 26 July 2017, Ouhrami, C‑225/16, EU:C:2017:590, paragraph 52), the fact remains that, when the competent national authority receives, from a third-country national, an application for a right of residence for the purposes of family reunification with a Union citizen who is a national of the Member State concerned, that authority cannot refuse to examine that application solely on the ground that the third-country national is the subject of a ban on entering that Member State. It is the duty of that authority, on the contrary, to examine that application and to assess whether there exists, between the third-country national and Union citizen concerned, a relationship of dependency of such a nature that a derived right of residence must, as a general rule, be accorded to that third-country national, under Article 20 TFEU, since otherwise the Union citizen would be compelled, in practice, to leave the territory of the European Union as a whole and, therefore, would be deprived of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred on him by that status. In such circumstances, the Member State concerned must withdraw or, at the least, suspend the return decision and the entry ban to which that third-country national is subject.