Introduction
Back to: History and Background of Migration in Europe
Asylum is a fundamental right
Granting asylum to people fleeing persecution, war or other serious harm in their home countries is an international obligation, which was first recognised in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the protection of refugees.1
Challenges of granting asylum in Europe
Asylum flows are not constant or evenly distributed. Nevertheless all member states of the European Union have a shared responsibility to grant fair treatment and common laws which apply regardless of the specific country an asylum seeker applies for.4
The European Union, which is an area of open borders and which consists of countries sharing the same values, aims at establishing a joint approach to guarantee high standards of protection for refugees. Otherwise, the abolition of internal borders would most likely result in a secondary EU-internal movement of refugees, choosing their final destination out of personal reasons or because they assume it might offer the most generous asylum policies.5
With this in mind, the EU States have decided to develop the Common European Asylum System.„7
Footnotes
- https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum_en
- https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions
- https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/content/geneva-refugee-convention-and-protocol_en
- https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/e-library/docs/ceas-fact-sheets/ceas_factsheet_en.pdf
- https://www.easo.europa.eu/sites/default/files/public/BZ0216138ENN.PDF
- https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas_en
- https://www.easo.europa.eu/sites/default/files/public/BZ0216138ENN.PDF