EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy Droit et Politique de l'Immigration et de l'Asile de l'UE

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by Francesco Maiani, University of Lausanne  and the Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute 

This article is available in Greek and in Italian.

The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and the Schengen travel area are in considerable jeopardy. The spontaneous arrival of approximately one million persons in 2015, 90% of them from the top refugee-producing countries of the world, has cruelly exposed their paradoxes and set in motion centrifugal forces that appear to threaten their very existence. The remedy proposed by the EU institutions includes as its centrepieces the “hotspot approach” and intra-EU relocation schemes. Great store is being placed in their implementation. Indeed, Greece is reportedly under the threat of exclusion from Schengen if it does not implement its “hotspots roadmap”. Hotspots and relocation also loom large in the debate on the future of the CEAS. The Commission has already proposed to include them permanently in the Union’s crisis toolbox and reportedly plans to replace Dublin with a permanent distribution key “quasi-automatically” allocating protection seekers to Member States.

While no one denies that the CEAS and Schengen urgently need therapy, it is worth asking whether the EU and its Member States are selecting the right one. I will offer my reflections on this after recalling the context in which hotspots and relocations schemes have been devised, their essential features, and the first experiences made to-date with their implementation. Continue reading »

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Par Daniel Thym, Universität Konstanz 

Les frontières représentent des lieux symboliquement forts qui sont profondément ancrées dans notre héritage culturel. La plupart d’entre nous avons pris connaissance de l’existence des frontières à l’école en tant que traits noirs séparant des pays sur une carte. Elles apparaissaient ainsi comme des structures presque naturelles nous permettant de nous orienter. Par conséquent, ce n’est pas une surprise si dans le débat politique les frontières nationales sont souvent invoquées comme un rempart à la crise de l’asile que nous connaissons. La Suède a récemment intensifié les contrôles en renforçant les sanctions à l’encontre des transporteurs. La semaine dernière, l’Autriche a introduit un plafond au nombre de demandes d’asiles et, pendant ce temps-là, en Allemagne, le soutien à un potentiel Plan B gagne de l’importance. Continue reading »

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By Daniel Thym, Universität Konstanz 

Borders are a place of great symbolic importance and are deeply enshrined in our cultural memory. Most of us first encountered them in school where we got to know borders as fine black lines on maps separating countries. They appeared, thus, as a quasi-natural basic structure giving us orientation. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that political debates often invoke national borders as a place where a solution to the ongoing refugee crisis could be found. Sweden recently stepped up controls through reinforced carrier sanctions. Last week, Austria introduced an upper limit on the number of refugees, while support for a potential Plan B gathered momentum in Germany. Continue reading »

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At a time when the debate on solidarity in the EU is blocked due to the failure of the relocation system proposed by the European Commission, we are happy to publish an article by economist Hillel Rapoport, which demonstrates an alternative to the present system. We hope that this article can serve to re-open the debate on the different possibilities for responsibility-sharing in the EU.

The article originally appeared in French on LeMonde.fr. We thank Le Monde for their authorisation to publish the English translation on this blog.

by Hillel Rapoport, Paris School of Economics and Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute 

The tragedies of the past summer have shaken public opinion and caused a radical change in the positions of European leaders, who increasingly rallied to the idea of refugee admission quotas. On the quantitative side, it is not for economists to say whether to integrate 40, 160 or 800,000 refugees. This is a political decision which must be based on humanitarian considerations and an assessment of the respective societies’ capacity (both socio-cultural and economic) to absorb refugees. However, on these two issues, economic analysis can help improve the European Unions’ response to the migrant crisis.

My colleague Jesus Fernandez-Huertas Moraga (University of Madrid) and I proposed a system of refugee admissions quotas within the European Union that are both “tradable” and accompanied by a “matching” mechanism. These tools have several advantages: they would lower the anticipated costs for the host country, and would therefore increase the likelihood that states would vote in favour of the amended system; they would take into account the preferences of both refugees (in terms of destination) and the host country (regarding the profile of the refugees they wish to host) as far as possible; and they would counter the race to the bottom on humanitarian protection. Continue reading »

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by Paula García Andrade, Universidad Pontificia Comillas 

The current refugee crisis the EU is experiencing has created quite a few divisions and disagreements among EU Member States and also among EU institutions. Discord does not however seem to focus only on the substance, but it has also reached the form. In recent months, a certain confusion has arisen with regard to the responsibility to convene and lead talks with third countries aimed at finding effective responses to the challenges posed to the EU by the constant arrival of people seeking international protection. Continue reading »

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This article is a collaboration between the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN) and the Odysseus Academic Network in honour of ECLAN’s 10th Anniversary. ECLAN will celebrate its anniversary with a conference in Spring 2016.

Co-authored by Anne Weyembergh and Chloé Brière, ECLAN  

Henri Labayle, GDR-ELSJ  

Philippe De Bruycker, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute  

and David Watt, Odysseus Network OMNIA Project 

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday 13th November, the French President declared a state of emergency and announced the introduction of a number of measures to “mobilise all possible forces in order to neutralise the terrorists and to guarantee the security of all the areas which could be concerned”. These measures included the reintroduction of controls by France at its internal borders with other Schengen States in the interest of preventing both the entry into the territory of dangerous individuals seeking to carry out terrorist attacks, and to thwart the escape of the attackers.

Nonetheless, Salah Abdeslam, a suspect believed to be one of the masterminds of the attacks, managed to escape by crossing the border between France and Belgium during the night from Friday to Saturday without being apprehended and has still not been arrested since, despite significant effort on the part of the Belgian and French police forces. More surprising, although relatively ignored by the media is that he was checked by French police in the border region (around the city of Cambrai) but not apprehended. How can this have happened in the heart of the EU where border guards, police, judges and intelligence services use modern technology to trace such people? Continue reading »