Common European Asylum System in a Changing World

In In 2015 and 2016 there was an enormous number of migrants coming to the European Union. In 2015, EU countries (plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Lichtenstein) recorded 1,392,155 applications for international protection. In 2016, there was only a slight decrease, 1,291,785 applications were submitted. The unprecedented influx of migrants to the European countries starting in 2015 is often called a “migration crisis” 1 . One of the major problems of the migration crisis was the situation at the external borders of the EU (especially in the south) . Under the Dublin III Regulation, Member States of the first entry are often responsible for examining the application for international protection (Article 13). Thus, Italy, Greece and other countries were overburdened by a high number of applications since many applicants were coming by sea. As a result, they were not able, and sometimes not willing to examine the applications and they let the applicants move to other EU Member States. This led to the secondary movements especially to Germany or Sweden as the “dream” countries which were subsequently overburdened by applications as well. To sum up, there was a serious infringement both of the Dublin III Regulation and Schengen rules . 4.3.1 Relocation Decisions Consequently, the European Commission and certain Member States argued that more emphasis should be put on the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility between the Member States expressed in Article 80 TFEU. The efforts were put into the equal distribution of applicants . Council Decision (EU) 2015/1523 of 14 September 2015 establishing provisional measures in the area of international protection for the benefit of Italy and of Greece and Council Decision (EU) 2015/1601 of 22 September 2015 establishing provisional measures in the area of international protection for the benefit of Italy and Greece were adopted in order to provide for fair burden sharing among the Member States – they are called “relocation decisions” . Both relocation decisions were based on Article 78(3) TFEU allowing the Council to adopt provisional measures in an emergency situation characterised by a sudden inflow of nationals from third-countries. While the Decision 2015/1523 originates from of the voluntary principle , the other Decision 2015/1601 provides for compulsory relocation and stipulates concrete numbers of applicants to be relocated from Italy and Greece to the territory of the other Member States. However, the relocation mechanism did not prove to be very effective. In spite of the fact that transfer of 160,000 applicants in total was envisaged by the Relocation Decisions (40,000 by Decision 2015/1523 and 120,000 by Decision 2015/1601), only around 30,000 applicants were really relocated – there was a mix of reasons which caused such a low percentage. Furthermore, the Decision 2015/1601 was controversial because some Member States did not support it and voted against it in the Council. Slovakia and Hungary then contested the Decision before the Court of Justice (joined cases C-643/15 and C-647/15) but their actions were not successful. Nevertheless, the Commission included a permanent relocation system called “corrective allocation mechanism” in its proposal for the Dublin IV Regulation of 2016 (see infra ) which forms a part of the general reform of the CEAS. This mechanism 1 People coming irregularly during migration crisis were both refugees or foreigners in need of subsidiary protection and economic migrants without reasons for protection – this mix of arriving persons is called „mixed flows“.

72