Legal Regulation of the External Dimension of the Common European Asylum System: current state and future perspectives

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. The article provides a thorough analysis of the external dimension of the European Union’s (EU) migration and asylum policy and its main components. The primary object of the research is the external area of the EU’s activities in the field of forced migration. The aim of the article is to define political and legal contours of the external dimension of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), trace its development from 2015 to 2022, and determine future directions of its evolvement.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The aforementioned objectives are achieved through deployment of the following methodological designs: descriptive, exploratory, historical and case study. The article gives a detailed overview of the programming documents of the EU, acts of the EU law concerning forced migration, and their implementation in the context of global and regional instabilities.RESEARCH RESULTS. Forced migration as an object of legal and political regulation on the part of the EU is subjected to “externalization” due to inconsistent internal practices and overall deviation of the EU members from the fundamental and internationally recognized burden-sharing principle in the field of refugee law. Such an approach should be perceived as an additional reason for potential deterioration of the migration situation in Europe, not to mention other possible implications on the human rights and economic dimensions.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The results of the analysis allow to draw significant conclusions: the external dimension of the CEAS became a top priority for the EU predominantly due to the inability of the European actors to reach consensus on the internal elements of the system; the external dimension of the CEAS may be characterized as a complex system consisting of political, legal and quasi-legal acts governing the EU’s external actions in the field of forced migration; the EU’s support became dependent on the willingness of its external partners to cooperate on migration-related issues; several external actors gained more bargaining power; external partnerships need to be readjusted in order to be efficient under current geopolitical circumstances.