Refugees in the European Union: from emergency alarmism to common management

ABSTRACT

The flows of refugees have ignited the European political debate, thereby boosting nationalistic forces in almost all countries. The aim of this paper is to counterbalance a widespread view about their overall impact and show that the number of asylum seekers did not represent a ‘refugee crises’. It argues, however, that the current European Union institutions and procedures are highly insufficient to successfully manage refugee inflows and asylum requests. It is often forgotten that large number of refugees are created from conflicts initiated or not prevented by EU members themselves. Once the problem comes into existence, as the procedures based on the Dublin Convention are widely recognised as inadequate, the paper provides a few suggestions for implementing radical changes to manage refugees and asylum seekers in the EU.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugees
• asylum seekers
• dublin system
• European refugees crisis
• European asylum policies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. InfoMigrants, Germany sees sharp drop in asylum requests in 2020, 11 January 2021 and AnsaMed, Greece posts 80% annual decrease in migrant flows, 20 January 2021.