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1. The process of determining the Member State responsible shall start as soon as an application for international protection is first lodged with a Member State.

2. An application for international protection shall be deemed to have been lodged once a form submitted by the applicant or a report prepared by the authorities has reached the competent authorities of the Member State concerned. Where an application is not made in writing, the time elapsing between the statement of intention and the preparation of a report should be as short as possible.

3. For the purposes of this Regulation, the situation of a minor who is accompanying the applicant and meets the definition of family member shall be indissociable from that of his or her family member and shall be a matter for the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection of that family member, even if the minor is not individually an applicant, provided that it is in the minor’s best interests. The same treatment shall be applied to children born after the applicant arrives on the territory of the Member States, without the need to initiate a new procedure for taking charge of them.

4. Where an application for international protection is lodged with the competent authorities of a Member State by an applicant who is on the territory of another Member State, the determination of the Member State responsible shall be made by the Member State in whose territory the applicant is present. The latter Member State shall be informed without delay by the Member State which received the application and shall then, for the purposes of this Regulation, be regarded as the Member State with which the application for international protection was lodged. The applicant shall be informed in writing of this change in the determining Member State and of the date on which it took place.

5. An applicant who is present in another Member State without a residence document or who there lodges an application for international protection after withdrawing his or her first application made in a different Member State during the process of determining the Member State responsible shall be taken back, under the conditions laid down in Articles 23, 24, 25 and 29, by the Member State with which that application for international protection was first lodged, with a view to completing the process of determining the Member State responsible. That obligation shall cease where the Member State requested to complete the process of determining the Member State responsible can establish that the applicant has in the meantime left the territory of the Member States for a period of at least three months or has obtained a residence document from another Member State. An application lodged after the period of absence referred to in the second subparagraph shall be regarded as a new application giving rise to a new procedure for determining the Member State responsible.