The need for collective action between the EU member states in the area of asylum, against the background of European integration and given the current refugee patterns, has proven to be necessary in order to effectively enhance refugee protection in the European Union, sustain national security and to maintain the freedom of movement.
Within this, the Dublin Regulation plays a vital role as the distribution mechanism of asylum requests filed in the EU. Dublin carries out a number of provisions, of which the ‘principle of the first’ is the most predominant, meaning that the first country through which an asylum seeker enters the EU is also the state responsible for the handling of the subsequent asylum request. It specifically aims at providing a fair access to the asylum procedure, whilst at the same time preventing asylum seekers into applying for asylum simultaneously in more than one EU member state.
The regulation is controversial however, as it allegedly not reaches it goals, as well as causing a disproportionate asylum burden on those states located at the external borders of the EU. Countries such as Greece and Bulgaria have seen their asylum systems collapse due to their incapacity to properly address the influx enhanced by Dublin leading to, amongst others, the risk of refoulement.
The analysis explores whether or not Dublin enhances an imbalanced burden-sharing to the expense of the external border countries, and seeks to explain why those states disadvantaged by the regulation have still agreed on its implementation. The analysis addresses this from several points of view corresponding to a broad theoretical framework entailing neo-functionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism and constructivism.
The paper offers an insight into the negotiation process of Dublin, the circumstances under which it was created and why alternatives to the regulation have, until now, been left aside. Based on the research results, it can be stated that the Dublin Regulation is fundamentally flawed due to the inability of defining and carrying out burden-sharing as an consistent element of the refugee protection regime. A distribution mechanism was necessary though, and its continuous implementation despite its deficiencies is arguably the result of the superior negotiation and bargaining power of certain member states, which are perceived not to suffer under the distribution effects of Dublin.