Government representatives, international and regional organisations, civil society, people with lived experience of statelessness and other experts from across Europe and Central Asia met in Warsaw for a two-day roundtable on preventing childhood statelessness and ensuring that no child is left without a nationality. With almost 430,000 people in Europe reported as stateless or of undetermined nationality, the roundtable underscored the urgency of strengthening legal and administrative safeguards across the region.
The roundtable was jointly organised by the Council of Europe, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and the European Network on Statelessness, under the umbrella of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness and co-funded by the European Union.
The discussions built on the Council of Europe's Compendium of Promising Practices on Access to Nationality for Stateless Children, developed under the auspices of the CDCJ, and the joint 2025 UNHCR–OSCE publication Opening Doors for Children: Prevention of Childhood Statelessness – Good Practices in the OSCE Area. The CDCJ Compendium provided an important basis for the exchanges, helping participants share practical approaches and identify further measures to strengthen safeguards and improve children's access to nationality across the region.
Participants examined barriers to birth registration and access to nationality, including burdensome documentation requirements, limited access to information and legal assistance, fees, language barriers and gaps in coordination between authorities. They highlighted the need to implement existing safeguards effectively, build the capacity of frontline officials, adopt child-centred approaches and ensure that civil registration systems are accessible to every child.
The CDCJ's Compendium is available as a practical resource for States looking to strengthen their national frameworks and is currently being translated into Albanian, German, Greek and Italian to broaden its reach across the region.
