The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) - The Dublin regulation

Hi, in this presentation I want to talk to you about the Common European Asylum System.

I. What is it and how does it work?

This is a system that has come into force with the Dublin Convention of 1990, the Dublin II
regulation of 2003 and the Dublin III regulation of 2013. And it's a way of assigning
responsibility for asylum determinations, to the member states of first entry.

And the purpose of this regulation is to prevent so-called “asylum shopping”, whereby a
migrant might be rejected in one state and then apply in another state, or search for the most
advantageous state for their particular case.

Italy and other European countries have signed the Dublin regulation, which is a document
that obliges each state to respect certain rules regarding asylum.

The procedure determines which country is responsible for examining and deciding your
asylum in the application, this may be any of the European Union countries, Switzerland,
Iceland or Liechtenstein. The responsible country must first be decided through the Dublin
procedure before the authorities of the country start to examine the detail of your asylum
application.

It is possible that based on the Dublin procedure you will be transferred to another country,
which is the responsible country to decide on your asylum application.

II. How this responsible country determined?

There are 4 criteria for determining the responsible country which is listed in descending
order of hierarchy

1. If your family member has been granted international protection or is an asylum

seeker in another member state, that member state will be the responsible country to
process your asylum application

If you want to be reunited with those family members you have to notify the migration office
as soon as possible. At the same time, you and your family member have to agree in writing
with the reunification and you must notify the migration office of such consent. You may
be reunited with a specific family member which includes your parents, siblings or children,
provided that:
➢ These persons are legal residents in another member state
➢ One of you is dependent on the assistance of another who can provide the necessary care
➢ Your family ties have already existed in your country of origin

2. The responsible country will be the one that granted visa or residence permit to you
3. The responsible country would be the one where your fingerprint has been recorded
 4. If there is evidence that you have stayed in or have been transferred through another
member state that country will be the responsible country even though
your fingerprint has not been taken

It aims to define which European state is responsible for your asylum application: this means
that if you arrive in Italy by sea land or plane the police take your digital fingerprint when you
are at the questura. Your digital fingerprint, your name, and your surname are all saved on
the European system eurodac.

Eurodac is a computer database with details of all the asylum seekers that arrived in Europe,
this means that the police of all European states can see your fingerprint and know from which
country you have come from

If the police take your digital fingerprints in Italy and then you leave Italy and claim asylum in
another country in Europe for example in Austria the Austrian police check your fingerprint
on eurodac, check who you are and can see that you have already claimed asylum in Italy

In this case, the Austrian police delivered a written statement that says you must go back to
Italy.

III. The issues of Dublin regulation

The problem with the Dublin system is that it is slow and inefficient, and it especially came
under pressure in 2015 and afterwards.

So, Italy and Greece were simply overwhelmed with numbers of migrants. They stopped
fingerprinting migrants in some cases and just sent them onwards. It soon came to light that
migrants were not being treated well in Hungary.

Germany stepped up saying, Angela Merkel famously saying “Wir schaffen das”, “we can do
this”. So accepting some numbers of migrants from Hungary, but then two weeks later, re-
instituting border controls with Austria and then we saw the renewal of border controls with
Austria, France, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, following this. So, it seemed to be a breakdown
of the Common European Asylum System and the following of the Dublin Regulation.

So how do we evaluate this?

First of all, this crisis for the CEAS seems to show the weakness of European integration. So
there isn't any incentive for member states to cooperate in this area. There are also some
issues if we think about it in terms of the effect on migrants themselves, for example, what
about their rights, needs and desires? Why is the first state of entry required for them? They
might have a reason why they want to be in another state, such as to be close to their family.

There have also been questions about whether it is a human rights violation to send migrants
for example, back to Greece from other countries. So there was a case at the European Court
of Human Rights, MSS vs Belgium, where it was decided that asylum seekers deported.