Refugees in the European Union: lack of solidarity, destruction of hopes

Abstract

The pursuit of virtual national interests by Member States, during and after the so-called refugee crisis, risks to undermine the European integration project. The starting point for governments is contradictory: on the one hand, the EU is based on the principle of free movement of persons, and solidarity and respect for human rights. On the other hand, European asylum policy is still based on the idea, reiterated in the Dublin regulations, that the Member State of first entry into the EU must take responsibility for the asylum seeker. Furthermore, there is significant discrepancy between the principles on which the EU is based and the internal and external policy actions it has undertaken. This paper answers to three questions: does the number of asylum seekers prove a refugee crisis? Are EU rules adequate to address the problem? The Dublin Convention increasingly emerges as a highly unrealistic attempt to manage refugee flows. Could alternative regulation reduce intra-European tensions? Finally, the third concerns the passivity with which the EU has seen refugees coming from war zones: to what extent have European countries actually tried to avoid international crises?