Regional Regimes: Europe

The EU and its Member States have developed a sophisticated regional asylum framework, encompassing legislative, responsibility-allocation, and practical cooperation components. Lack of fair responsibility sharing, an implementation gap, and an externalisation impetus riddle EU’s asylum policy. The EU is constantly torn between the opposing imperatives of protection and deflection. The Council of Europe impacts refugee protection most notably through the European Convention on Human Rights which contains asylum-relevant rights. Tensions between protection and deference to states’ migration management imperatives are, however, a constant in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. The EU has sought to deflect its protection obligations to Turkey. Those protected under Turkey’s temporary protection status face barriers in accessing the rights formally attached to it, while there is no graduation to more durable protection even as protection needs persist. Ukraine, with its nascent asylum system, remains a potential future externalisation partner for the EU.