Should the Dublin regulation be implemented or should Europe move towards burden sharing?

Abstract

This term paper will focus on the fact that whilst the Commission has put forward a proposal to the Dublin IV Regulation, which will base itself on streamlining and supplementing the Regulation with a corrective fairness mechanism, the current Regulation places a burden on the front-line Member States. The proposal is not one which is agreed to by all the inner border Member States, which leaves the European Union with a Regulation which has been seen not to work during instances of large migrant influx. The Dublin Regulation is part of a bigger system, that of the Common European Asylum System. This will be analytically studied with reference made to all the Regulations and Directives which form part of the System. During the crisis of 2015, these were seen to hinder the application of the Dublin Regulation, due to asylum seekers not wanting to seek asylum in certain Member States because of the low reception conditions and different qualification standards which are set out in the Directives and Regulations. These Directives and Regulations are all currently under review, with reference to their proposal explained in the term paper. The crisis of 2015 not only brought about a needed reform to the CEAS, but also caused the European Union to implement other directives which were necessary to help the front-line border Member States deal with the large influx that they were facing. These measures are discussed in the paper, with reference to those actions taken which show that the implementation of the Dublin Regulation is making the asylum process a more difficult one. The Dublin Regulation clearly brought about some shortcomings, and due to this a burden sharing approach is discussed in the paper, to not only help the front-line Member States, but also those seeking asylum.