Policy Brief: A “New” pact on Migration and Asylum? The European migration policy path-dependency

Our intern Agathe Helluin has written a Policy Brief on "A New Start on Migration": this is how the European Commission described the new pact on migration and asylum presented at the 2020 State of the Union speech in September. This new pact undoubtedly captures the expectation that the EU will fully reshape its migration policy by recognising its limits and shortcomings.

The first and most crucial legislative proposal is the Regulation on asylum and migration management (RAMM) which aims to ‘replace the Dublin regulation with a new asylum and migration management system that allocates applications better between MS by means of a new solidarity mechanism’ Its main objective is therefore to replace the highly controversial and defective Dublin III principle, which determines the Member State responsible for the migrant’s asylum application on the basis of responsibility criteria, such as family unity. Yet, in practice, its hierarchy of criteria has been partially respected by the MS, to the detriment of the first countries of entry.

Thereby, the RAMM seeks to replace the Dublin III system by reasserting two notions at the heart of European migration policy: ‘solidarity’ - as the MS’ duty to cooperate in the handling and management of migration flows; and ‘responsibility’ - as the MS’ duty to take part in the management of migration flows, as well as to control national borders.

 You can read the whole policy paper through the PDF button.