Administrative Governance in the EU Asylum Policy: The Limits of the European Administration in Establishing a Common Asylum System

The main aim of this research is to holistically analyse the content and critically assess the development of EU’s ‘Common European Asylum System’ (CEAS). It is pursued in three consecutive steps. The research first offers a deeper understanding of the CEAS, a notion that despite its centrality to EU’s asylum policy lacks a precise definition. This gap forms the natural starting point of this study. The study advances its own substantial understanding, which includes the modes of implementation of the policy. Hence, it retraces the main modes of implementation in the initial policy design. As a second step, the research focuses on a principle that should be central to the design and implementation of this policy, the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility. It argues that this principle unsettles the initial administration paradigms. The third step is to analyse an element that has not been explored so far by legal literature, namely the administrative governance of CEAS, as it pertains to its implementation. On this basis it examines the institutionalisation of practical co-operation, people-sharing arrangements and EU funding. It is a study of the European administration in action in the area of asylum. I critically assess the adaptations made to the policy design since its inception, including those catapulted by the so-called refugee crisis. On this basis, the research proposes potential avenues for the future development of the asylum policy.