Asylum in the Balkans: European Union and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees assistance to Balkan countries for establishing asylum systems

Abstract

The externalization of EU asylum and immigration policy that arose from the EU Council of Seville bears the conflicting dichotomy that is proven detrimental to the EU asylum and immigration reform: the contradiction between principles of human rights on the one hand, and that of internal security on the other. However, in the EU foreign policy, the element of internal security seems to prevail. There exists only a limited need to pacify dissented domestic actors such as human rights and refugee rights groups, whom, whereas they are very vocal in opposing EU asylum and immigration reform at home, remain uninformed and ill‐equipped to be able to protest against the external wing of this reform. Rather, a limited number of international NGOs and international organizations have criticized many elements of the EU foreign policy regarding asylum and immigration. I argue that the external wing of the EU asylum and immigration policy is overwhelmingly infused with a tendency to halt the immigration influx toward its territories, with little concern for human rights and international standards of refugee protection. I empirically analyze my argument through considering the case of the EU policies and UNHCR assistance to Balkan countries as they work to establish asylum systems in this region.