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The European Court of Justice has ordered the Dutch government to process the asylum applications of 140,000 Ukrainian refugees, adding to the pressure on an overstretched system.

Ukrainians who fled the country in the wake of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 are covered by the European Union’s temporary protection rules, which give them the right to live, work and receive medical care in the Netherlands.

Under Dutch rules they are also required to apply for asylum, but until now the immigration service IND has shelved their applications because the European regulations give them more rights.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg said in a judgment last week that the rules requiring the Netherlands to process all asylum claims within 21 months also applied to people who fled Ukraine.

The case was brought by a man from the Chinese Uighur minority who was married to a Ukrainian woman and lived in Ukraine with his wife and child before the invasion.

He won a ruling at the district court in The Hague forcing the asylum minister to rule on his claim by January 2024. The court also imposed a conditional penalty on the government of €100 foe every day that a decision is overdue, up to a maximum of €7,500.

The government appealed, and the case was referred to the ECJ, which said the man had the right to claim asylum as a third country national through the regular procedure even though he was already protected by the EU rules for Ukrainians.

Asylum minister Bart van den Brink admitted that the decision would put “extra pressure” on the system, but the court also recognised that the Netherlands needed time to process all 140,000 claims.

“For a long time we chose not to process claims from Ukrainians because of the fact that they were already protected,” he told NOS. “It’s also because it was a very large number. Now the court has clearly said we have to do it.”

The Netherlands is one of the few countries in the EU that require Ukrainian refugees to apply for asylum through the regular channels in addition to the EU’s temporary protection rules, which are currently valid until March 2028 but are reviewed every year.

“In hindsight it wasn’t such a good idea to link temporary protection to the submission of a claim for asylum,” asylum lawyer Wil Eikelboom said.

Vluchtelingenwerk, the Dutch refugee council, said the need to have asylum claims processed would cause “more worry and uncertainty” for Ukrainians.

“Returning to Ukraine is not a realistic option at the moment, given that there is no sign of the war ending.” a spokesman told Dutch News.

“Vluchtelingenwerk hopes there will be a clear and above all sustainable plan for Ukrainians in the Netherlands, so that these people, who have already been through so much, know where they stand.”

Van den Brink said the government planned to deal with the Ukrainian applications in reverse order, beginning with people who have just arrived in the Netherlands and then working through the 5,000 who are currently on the waiting list for a first response from the government.

Ricky van Oers, lecturer in migration law at Radboud University in Nijmegen, said European rules allowed the government to take more time to process applications when there was a large number from a single country at once.

“They can also decide to prioritise certain groups, such as families,” he said.