The refugee emergency : assessing the political and policy responses

Abstract

Europe is facing its worst refugee emergency since World War II. This has put both existing mechanisms for managing asylum seeking and irregular migration flows, and solidarity among member states to the test. Dealing with the crisis has required a recasting of the EU-Turkey relationship and an overall re-designing of EU foreign policy. The massive flows of asylum seekers have also raised special protection challenges, giving rise to incidents of violent people smuggling. A year after the EU-Turkey Agreement which effectively stopped migration flows entered into force, the time is ripe for a critical mid-term assessment. The aim is to evaluate how adequate the EU and national level political and policy responses to the refugee emergency have been, and to outline some lessons which could inform future responses.