A comparative analysis on the European Union's policies towards refugees : policies, strategies and discrepancies the case of Bosnia, Syria and Afghanistan (original) (raw)
Related papers
European Union Policy on Refugees According to the International Refugee Law
Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences (ICSS 2020), 2020
This paper discusses the European Union (EU) as a supranational international organization which has the obligation to establish relevant rules in its organization, including the regulations on refugees. The existence of CEAS and its subordinate bodies is a form of reference for member countries of the EU in dealing with refugee issues. The exodus of refugees entering the European Union region, however, has made Italy, Greece, and Germany ignored and established domestic regulations regarding this refugee crisis. This stance has impacts on the refugees such as the presence of immigrant sentiments, surveillance in border areas, and refusal of refugees based on religion.
An analysis of European Union Refugee Policy since 1990- 2018
IOSR Journals , 2019
Since the formation of the European Union, member states have grasped with common effort to handle various issues that affect them. Amongst these are issues like refugees among others. The 2011 refugee crisis exposed and to a large extent shaped new policies with regards to handling of refugees across the EU. This study analyses the evolving European Union policies regarding refugees since the 1990s until 2018. Relying on qualitative data, the authors sought to explore the trends, then and now with regards to refugee handling with a view to establishing any change or stagnation in this area, and hopefully inform future discourse on refugee issues.
New Challenge for the European Union: The Refugee Crisis
In this paper, the main focus point is the challenges of the European Union on the edge of the refugee crisis. Why do refugees prefer Europe, what are the challenges for Europeans and is the EU model of cultural diversity sinking are the main questions that are asked for an answer. Several answers have been found to these questions by providing various examples EU institutions as well as newspapers. Since this issue would affect the Union economically, culturally, territorially and create significant conflicts among the member states, it is important to analyze and gain a full understanding of all the side effects of this topic.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
The European Union officially proclaims to have a common refugee policy. However, the common treaties leave a great deal of discretion to the individual member countries, which allows them to regulate refugee migration while still upholding international treaties. Member countries have authority over border controls, the processing of asylum applications as well as economic benefits provided to refugees. We show that the differences in refugee flows are so extensive and systematic that the existence of a common EU refugee policy is debatable. The commitments made by the member countries are largely voluntary, and refugee policy is mainly determined at the national level. The discrepancies between the member countries strongly signal that the European Union may not be an optimal region for a common refugee policy. A refugee policy should instead be determined at the national level concordant with the regional and local level, where integration measures are implemented in practice. Meanwhile, the European Union can play an important role through refugee aid to afflicted countries, treaties with third countries, rescue actions in the Mediterranean and control of the external EU borders.
THE GOVERNANCE OF SYRIAN REFUGEES IN EUROPE
The civil war in Syria erupted in 2011, leading one million refugees to request asylum in Europe. The European Member States, bounded by the United Nations' 1951 Refugee Convention, are obliged to host refugees. The high influx of refugees put pressure on border states; and a management of refugees is needed to reduce this pressure. This article addresses the Governance of Syrian Refugees in Europe. In order to do so, a framework by Borras and Edler is adopted. The framework is based on three pillars; actors involved, instruments' utilized and the legitimacy of these instruments. The article focuses on three main actors; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), European Commission (EC) and the Public; and their interaction with each other and Member States. Financial instruments are mainly utilized by UNHCR and the EC to hold Member States accountable for accepting refugees as well as to provide support, whereas the public uses lobbying to influence Member States and other actors involved. The three pillars explain the behavior of these actors in the current governance scenario and the complexities and obstacles which are hindrance to a smooth and stable governance of refugees. In that essence, the article highlights an arising dilemma between ethical/political agreements, and individual interest in the current structure of governance of Syrian Refugees in Europe.
The European Development Response to the Refugee and Migration Crisis
International Organisations Research Journal, 2018
This paper is focused on the European development response to the refugee and migration crisis. European development aid was impacted by the refugee and migration crisis and appeared to be a tool to smooth the consequences of the crisis in Europe. The author conducted semi-structured interviews with scholars, policymakers and representatives of civil society and came to conclusion that the European Union (EU) and its members, instead of developing a strategic programme to resolve this structural issue, used a tactical solution to achieve the short-term goal of stopping migration. Short-term motivations prevailed over a long-term strategy and resulted in the politicization of development aid in policy papers: there was a significant change in the discourse regarding migration and development assistance. While EU members have indeed excessively used official development assistance (ODA) to host refugees in their countries, EU development programmes in African countries have been largely relabeled as "migration-related." So far there is no evidence-based research that redistribution of aid beneficiaries has taken place as a result of the policy to tackle the "root causes" of migration. This paper first outlines the European policy framework on development assistance which is aimed at migration management. Then it identifies the EU initiatives to mainstream migration into the development agenda, and considers members' use of ODA to cover domestic expenses for refugees and asylum seekers. The paper concludes by outlining the key concerns regarding instrumentalization of aid.
The EU׳s Regional Refugees Approach: A Double-Edged, but Promising Approach
2023
The European Union has drawn on its migration policy in the Middle East and North Africa as a method of region-building that takes resilience as its "Governing Principle" when responding to crises. The central theme of resilience is to keep refugees closer to their home instead of flowing into Europe. This approach might be promising, yet it has both positive and negative effects. In the absence of adequate resources, resilience building may exacerbate the economic, political and social vulnerabilities already existing in these countries. In addition, resilience does not seem to put an end to the refugees' suffering which, in turn, leads to increasing demands for better services, which could ultimately lead to violent riots that endanger the security of these states. Hence, resilience may seem to jeopardise rather than safeguard the security of these hosts. However, considering the case of displacement from Syria, the article focuses on the EU's approach to refugees in its neighbourhood, and attempts an in-depth analysis of the EU's refugee cooperation with Jordan, one of the key regional hosts, to argue that while resilience might be an approach with opposing effects, the EU and Jordan are working to make it a promising one. Their focus is to maintain a balance between the interests of refugees and of local communities. More importantly, the role of resilience in preserving Jordan's economic and social stability and its social cohesion makes it a more promising approach than simply providing humanitarian assistance.
Refugees in Europe Consequences of the Challenges
Intense refugee flows into Europe created some internal and international problems. In order to identify and propose solutions to them, this issue will be analyzed on both political and economics perspectives. The role of the individual as a refugee in the international politics creates some problems such as procedural disharmony and unjust burden sharing between states especially with inadequate regulations like Dublin Regulations. From the public policy perspective, access to basic health care services is one of the most problematic issues since data collection requires great international cooperation to get a proper data to prevent infectious diseases. Providing public services comes with a price and unjust distribution of the refugees creates short-run economic struggles for the host countries. However, there are also some benefits that refugees provide to European countries in the long term with being a part of the labor market especially in the countries which suffer from shortage of the youth population. In this sense, education of the refugees is necessary because it makes easier and more rapid the process of refugees’ integration to the both society and labor market. The problems are interwoven; therefore, the solutions should not only be a single focused harmonization but a complete one for the EU case since the EU states have already been in a steady integration process.
In this work we will examine the reasons, covered with law and facts, about the recent migration crisis which had a tremendous influence on all EU and Western Balkan countries. The sole fact that thousands of refugees are being accepted to the EU without any border check in 2014 and 2015 caused the initial frustration of citizens in FYRO Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo*. All these countries need endless paperwork in order to acquire a work permit in EU. On the top of this Kosovo* inhabitants can not even travel to EU without Visa. This lead to the exodus of thousands of Kosovo Albanians to the EU on a well known route. The famous Balkan route as it is called commonly has its roots back into the early 90’s when the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia (SFRJ) has started. War activities became an everyday activity in many regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and later Kosovo and Metohija in Serbia. Still the borders of countries outside of ex Yugoslavia were not widely opened for refugees. On the European level the importance for regulating this was seen and a solution given in The 1990 Dublin Convention, later Regulation. Before this the main idea of refugees, in some situations dissidents, was seen in the fact that many skilled workers and craftsmen emigrated from the East (Communist) Europe to the West (Capitalist) Europe. Some of them being Political refugees (dissidents) but the main criteria for their status was mainly determined by a political or economical value they had. The value of such refugees was their knowledge, skills and competence which could be used for economic development and in some cases the bare prestige of having intellectuals fled from the communist oppression. In the 1990 Dublin Convention, the signing parties recognized the need to regulate asylum seeking. They introduced the rule of the first country of application, where the asylum seeker has applied for asylum. That means 2 that this first country of application will exclusively deal with the asylum seekers case and either accept or reject it, after what other Dublin countries will not give a chance for another try. Now this system lived successfully for many years until Hungary did not become flooded with illegal migrants in the summer of 2015. Even after the failure of the Dublin regulation it became evident that it is not useful for the present problem and a solution has to be sought. The Hungarian solution was the infamous border lock or in Hungarian “határzár”1 whereas the EU invented, or reinvented the solution from the colonial era, the EU’s “real” solution/problem had been introduced then in the form of a quota system. The fact is that Syrian citizens have a right to claim asylum in EU, but also in many countries prior to their arrival to EU as well. Also they never intended to claim it in e.g. Hungary but they are forced to since it became obvious that people cross the border and travel without any check to different EU countries to the west. Hungary was at some point blamed for its “law” enforcement using different tools and a border fence towards Serbia on the end. We have many other questions, in particular related to the fact that refugees have to travel in very inhuman conditions. If there is a country where they want to go and that country can accept them, why don’t other countries help them to reach it easier? Why they are becoming an easy prey for people smugglers and cross border crossings illegally? On the end we will try to answer the ultimate question, why Germany? Or in other words why they are welcome on the west of EU and not so much welcome on the east of EU, when we say east we don’t mean Hungary solely.