The highest Dutch administrative court ruled Wednesday that the Netherlands should no longer send single male asylum-seekers back to Belgium, citing its “systemic failure” in meeting basic needs.

In a ruling Wednesday that was strikingly critical of Belgian asylum policy, the Dutch Council of State — which deals with administrative matters, not criminal or civil — said that “deficiencies in the reception situation and legal protection for single male asylum seekers are now so structural that, upon return to Belgium, this group actually risks ending up on the streets and no longer being able to provide for their most basic needs.”

Under EU rules, countries can send asylum-seekers back to the nation where they were first registered on arrival in the bloc. This principle is based on the assumption that all EU countries offer refugees the same level of protection.

But the Council of State said the lack of shelter for single male asylum-seekers in Belgium was now “structural” rather than “temporary.” It added that the group also lacks “access to effective legal protection because the Belgian authorities fail to comply with court rulings and fail to pay penalty payments.”

Belgian authorities’ “indifference” toward addressing those shortcomings has snowballed into a “systemic failure,” the Council of State said.

Belgium prioritizes families and women when offering asylum shelter; single men must register on a waiting list.

As of last week, there were 1,800 men on that list. The number has been decreasing in recent months and many of them “are receiving temporary shelter in homeless shelters in Brussels,” Fedasil, Belgium’s asylum agency, said.