Sharing responsibilities in the Common European Asylum System

CEASEVAL Working Paper No.4 

In recent years, mass inflows of asylum seekers have put the asylum systems of several EU Member States under significant pressure. Due to the unequal distribution of these flows, calls have emerged urging the need to share responsibilities related to these asylum claims among EU MS. This paper departs from the most recent discussion on the Dublin reform proposal by the Presidency of the Council, which establishes a number of ways to share responsibilities. By listing and describing them, we further map the efforts undertaken by EU Member States in each of the fields related to the Common European Asylum System. While a number of responsibility sharing measures coordinated by the European Commissions and EU agencies are already in place, efforts towards a distribution mechanism have been less successful.