The common European asylum system : a review of the progress achieved in light of the recast process with specific focus on the reception conditions directive

Abstract

In principle, the overarching ambition underpinning this thesis shall be to evaluate the state of affairs of the Common European Asylum System (‘CEAS’) in light of the recent and formal adoption of the recast ‘asylum package’. Correspondingly, specific focus shall be placed on the Reception Condition Directive, and, in particular, the amendments which have emerged by virtue of the revision of the first generation instrument (that is, the ‘first phase RCD’). As such, the intention proposed herein is to query whether the recasted Directive (referred to as the ‘recast RCD’) significantly advances the expressed objective of establishing ‘a common area of protection’ within the EU, predicated upon ‘high protection standards’. In that respect, this thesis commences with a general overview of the CEAS, inclusive of the factors which induced the onset of asylum co-operation at an EU level. Pertinently, due importance is also afforded to the disclosed shortcomings that were detected to negate the efficacy of the first generation asylum instruments. With that in mind, ‘Chapter II’ delves into the first-phase RCD, and, in so doing, stresses that the minimum ‘reception standards’ promulgated therein were not conducive to achieving high and common standards of treatment for asylum seekers across the Union. In the same vein, ‘Chapter III’ analyses the recast RCD in order to determine the extent of the progress that the revised Directive constitutes over its first-phase counterpart. The foregoing then dovetails into a comprehensive argument that the realisation of a true CEAS is dependent on symmetrically and coherently high standards throughout the legislative instruments that comprise the now recasted EU asylum acquis. Therefore, the tone adopted in the closing Chapter regarding the completion of the ‘recast process’, as well as the developments underlying the second phase of the CEAS, derives from the outcome of the preceding assessment on the recast RCD.