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Traditionally, differences in states' refugee protection contributions have been attributed to the variation in countries' structural pull-factors such as their geographic location. However, policy choices, such as Germany's decision to open its borders for Syrian refugees in 2015, can also have a significant impact on the number of arrivals and constitute a puzzle that traditional approaches struggle to explain. This paper demonstrates that viewing refugee burden-sharing through the lens of public goods theory can provide significant insights about refugee protection dynamics in the EU, in particular in the context of a sudden mass influx of migrants that threatens internal security. By highlighting how free-riding and burden-shifting dynamics can undermine the provision of collective goods during a refugee crisis, a public goods approach can advance our understanding of why countries sometimes accept disproportionate responsibilities for forced migrants and how the effectiveness of EU refugee burden-sharing instruments can, and should, be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Moravcsik's Liberal Intergovernmentalism, I offer an explanation of the non-decision on permanent EU refugee quotas. Some traditionally influential Member States in EU asylum politics, such as Germany, Austria and Sweden, received large numbers of refugees and faced strong domestic pressures to engage other Member States in responsibility-sharing. Yet, governments of Member States with small application numbers (among whom several Eastern European governments were particularly vocal) had incentives to undercut responsibility-sharing to avoid similar pressures. Having a better alternative to the potentially negotiated agreement, these governments successfully blocked the introduction of permanent refugee quotas. Besides explaining the absence of an effective response to one of the root causes of the asylum crisis (unequal strains) through asymmetrical interdependence, the article further develops Liberal Intergovernmentalist arguments and shows how national electorates influence positions taken by governments at the EU level when they are mobilized by right-wing populist parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neither the EU. nor Its MS were ready to face the problem of the massive influx of Syrian refugees coming from Turkey in 2015 and 2016. The distribution of competences between the EU and Its MS did not help. Moreover, It brought to light the lack of solidarity among MS and between them and those in need of international protection. EU's answer has been manyefold: Increase development aid in the migrant's countries of origin; fight the smugglers and profiteers of human beings; improve frontier control and help refugees In transit countries. The EU-Turkey agreement plays an essential role in this new policy. The EU needs this agreement to be seen as fair and in accordance with international law besides being useful. But there is a vast majority of critical voices, both from the NGOs and the legal experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo discurre sobre el acuerdo entre la Unión Europea y Turquía en cuanto a los solicitantes de asilo. Los autores comentan sobre los riesgos asociados con la deportación a pesar de este acuerdo y examinan la falta de asistencia y protección jurídica para los refugiados. También se considera rol de la Agencia de la Organización de Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados.

Since 1999 the EU has adopted a series of legal instruments to establish a Common European Asylum System to harmonize legislation on reception systems and asylum procedures. On 13 May 2015 the European Commission presented a European Agenda for Migration including a new regulation proposal of the European Parliament and Council from Directive 2013/32 / EU on safe countries of origin list. The new EU regulatory framework for international protection was published on 29 June 2013. The Spanish legal framework for international protection present deficiencies in relation to the transposition of European Directives. The analysis of national statistical data show the low percentage of applications in Spain comparing to other MS of the European Union. It is important to underline the weaknesses of the Spanish asylum system and to develop proposals regarding the measures to be developed in order solve these difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on international migration suggests that partisan differences exist in regards to policies that regulate the conditions of migrants residing in host countries (migrant policies), but not in regards to policies determining the admission of new migrants (migration policies). We propose that partisan differences exist regarding migration policies, but that these differences are conditional on a party-labor relationship. In our empirical analysis, we use error correction models to examine asylum and labor migration policies in Western European countries from 1984 to 2006. We find that migration policies become more liberal as government partisanship moves to the left only when unskilled manual workers split their votes between left-wing and right-wing parties. The result implies that a strong relationship between left-wing parties and workers, which mutually benefits both groups in some areas (such as welfare), may be incompatible when conflicts arise between their interests concerning issues such as international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the EU asylum and migration policy is often explained as the result of ‘venue-shopping’, that is, the move by policy-makers to an EU policy venue in order to avoid national constraints. This article demonstrates that, contrary to what would have been expected on the basis of this widespread view, EU co-operation on asylum matters has actually led to a rise in the legal standards applicable to asylum-seekers and refugees. This outcome can be mainly explained by broader changes that have gradually affected the EU ‘system of venues’ and have thereby decreased the likelihood of more restrictive measures being adopted in the EU asylum policy venue. This has important implications for the EU governance of asylum and migration in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the likely positive obligations of the European Union ('EU') following its approaching accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. By focusing on the Dublin Regulation and recent asylum seeker returns to Greece as breaches of the prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment, the article demonstrates that in dysfunctional areas of EU regulation, quite concrete changes will be necessary in order to meet the standards required thus far by the approach of the European Court of Human Rights and general principles of international law. This seems all the more probable given the prescriptive nature of the relationship between the EU and member states in the area of immigration. Ultimately, the article argues that current EU law fails to meet the requisite human rights obligations to protect and prevent, investigate, deter and prosecute. In the absence of reforms including a proposed suspension of transfers mechanism, the article concludes that the EU is likely to be condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for failing to meet its obligations under art 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo discurre sobre las normas y directivas de la Comisión Europa promulgadas en 2008 para establecer estándares para la recepción de solicitantes de asilo. El autor comenta sobre el proceso de la detención de los inmigrantes y los refugiados y examina los métodos involucrados para protegerles.