Other countries appoint social workers to contact the relative on their territory and the child with the aim to assess whether it would be in the child’s best interest to be reunited with the family member/relative. According to NGOs, France always conducts interviews with the relatives residing in the country while in one case, Italian authorities exceptionally called for an interview with family members of the minor due to insufficient information available in the file. Another factor that is being considered while assessing the best interest of the minor, is the existence of a family member/ relative in the requesting Member State. Although the mere existence of a relative does not change the legal status of the minors as unaccompanied, some Member States misinterpret the best interest of the minors by considering them accompanied. Based on that argument, they reject family reunification requests of unaccompanied minors and therefore, prevent them from being reunited with a closer family member. Although the best interest of the minor should be of primary consideration when examining a family reunification request, the requested Member States proceed with the assessment of the case under the Dublin III Regulation in all take charge requests addressed to them. Spain, for instance, does not examine requests of unaccompanied minors based on articles other than Article 8 of the Regulation. In one case handled by GCR, the Spanish Dublin Unit stated that all requests concerning minors are to be examined under the criteria of Article 8, while Article 17(2) was not applicable in this case as this is not considered to be a discretionary case by the Spanish Authorities. Thus, the case was finally rejected in 2021, without due consideration of the Best Interest Assessment Form and no explanation for the rejection was provided as required under Article 17(2) of the Regulation EU 604/2013. The practice continued in 2022 and, according to NGOs, France adopted the same practice of not examining requests that are based on other grounds than Art 8 of the Regulation. GCR is not in a position to confirm whether this remains the case in 2025. GCR is also aware of the case of an unaccompanied minor who applied to be reunited with his uncle who is a German citizen. His application was rejected in 2021 by the German authorities because, according to the rejection letter, the Dublin III Regulation is not applicable in such cases. Yet, this reasoning is contradictory to Article 8 of the Regulation, which requires for the family member or/ and relative to be legally present. The best interest of the minor and the documents submitted to support the case were not taken into consideration. However, in 2022, France accepted the family reunification request of a minor with his aunt who holds the French citizenship. 491 GCR is not aware of such cases in 2024 and 2025. When applicants are not able to provide identification documents, DNA tests is the only way to prove the family link. However, based on GCR’s experience in previous years, some countries require a DNA test as a rule to be able to assess family links. Age assessments is another matter that might affect the outcome and the processing time of a reunification request. Based on GCR’s experience in previous years, Member States question the results of the age assessments of unaccompanied children which were not conducted according to their own methods. 2.1.2. The dependent persons and discretionary clauses Outgoing requests under the humanitarian clause concern mainly dependent and vulnerable persons and are sent either when Articles 8-11 and 16 are not applicable or in cases where the three-month timeframe has expired regardless of the reason. Article 17(2) has been widely used for cases of subsequent separation as well as in the beginning of 2021 for cases in which the deadline for transfer was not met, on account of the added challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. 2.1.3. The relocation scheme 491 Information provided by the NGO European Expression. 104