EU enlargement and the challenge of policy transfer: The case of refugee policy

Abstract

This article examines EU enlargement in the area of refugee policies as a process of policy transfer guided by the intergovernmental activities of EU member states with limited involvement of EU institutions. Giving an overview of asylum legislation in the ten Central and Eastern European candidate countries since the early 1990s, this article assesses the relationship between internal and external influences in the shaping of asylum policies and reflects on the scope of convergence in the candidate countries. Starting from the observation of the incomplete and still very much fragmented nature of the EU asylum acquis , it is shown that all candidate countries have adopted its main restrictive elements, regardless of practical difficulties in their implementation and important differences with regard to past and present experiences with refugee flows.