Time to Shift Towards Shared-Burden Responsibility: A Review of the Syrian Mass Influx Migration

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The Dublin III Regulation sets the mechanisms and standards that a Member State must adopt, when it comes to reviewing a submitted application for international protection by a third-country national or a stateless person. It requires that an asylum seeker register in the first country in which he enters and remains for the final decision. In the absence of any request for the application of the Mass Influx Directive, this Regulation was applied differently in the Syrian crisis by the States concerned. The end result, however, was that the Syrian migrants in most Member States were considered as refugees, and if they failed to satisfy the set criteria, they were regarded as illegal migrants. The same disparity existed in the Member States’ reactions to some other issues, such as return. None of the measures that Member States and the European Union (EU) have adopted so far seems to offer a proper response to the present massive migration influx. It may be suggested that in the face of a major crisis, the EU has failed to rise up to the challenge, except with regard to some financial aids. This Chapter seeks to review some of these measures and to suggest: (i) that the issues currently faced by Member States are fundamentally different from those for which the earlier measures were adopted; and (ii) that because of that difference, the Dublin system may not be a very appropriate instrument for dealing with this situation as well as other similar circumstances, such as the African and Asian mass influxes. The Commission needs to revert to the issue of mass influx, and to find a reliable solution enhancing shared responsibility and solidarity.