Nowadays, European countries are facing the most severe refugee issue since World War II. After the break out of the Syrian civil war, a large number of refugees fled to Europe, seeking protection...Show moreNowadays, European countries are facing the most severe refugee issue since World War II. After the break out of the Syrian civil war, a large number of refugees fled to Europe, seeking protection and stability. As an ongoing international phenomenon, the issue of Syrian refugees has become an urgent problem in need of solving. The European Union has a responsibility to take action and deal with the issue, and one way is through helping newly arrived asylum seekers to settle down. Although the European Parliament and European Commission started in 2015 to launch the resettlement plan (along with various other initiatives to deal with the issue of refugees,) it seems to be difficult for Member States to implement a standard procedure, and no effective unitary measures have been taken so far. Ever since 1997 when the Dublin Regulation came into force, the European Union has been aiming to develop a set of common policies for asylum seekers, and to harmonize the process and procedures. However, previous studies and real situation revealed that neither the Dublin Regulation nor CEAS (Common European Asylum System) could be properly implemented by Member States as planned. In spite of the fact that the European Union has proposed several revisions and amendments since 1997, the main problems remain unsolved, and Member States still struggle to reach an agreement on fair and equal common asylum procedures. This thesis will discuss the topic through a comparison of Germany and Hungary from different aspects on the national level. I hope to identify and explain the reasons why Member States responded differently to the issue of Syrian refugees under the same asylum system and common EU law.Show less
The EU has not succeeded in developing a uniform approach in response to the exceptionally high number of asylum seekers entering Europe. Instead, the EU’s recent handling of irregular migration...Show moreThe EU has not succeeded in developing a uniform approach in response to the exceptionally high number of asylum seekers entering Europe. Instead, the EU’s recent handling of irregular migration has been marked by unilateral action, mutual accusations and political deadlock. Moreover, the European migration crisis of 2015 has demonstrated that the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is unable to handle migratory pressure and actually stimulates secondary movements. However, the current East-West divide prevents the emergence of any meaningful compromise that would allow the CEAS to be successfully reformed. For this reason, the question examined by this thesis is whether the CEAS can be reformed through using differentiation and if so, how and to what extent this would be possible. In order to answer this question, three topics surrounding EU asylum and migration policy are discussed, i.e. Schengen, external border management and the relocation program. The analysis of this thesis concludes that differentiation cannot be applied to Schengen and is not required to enhance external border management because of an emerging consensus. Still, differentiation does have the potential to improve the functioning of the relocation program but this would require member states to centralize their asylum policies, something that is unlikely to happen in the near future. Even so, a coalition of the willing should aim to reform the CEAS into a centralized EU asylum system because only then will the EU be able to effectively control high levels of irregular migration into Europe.Show less
