Seeking Coherence Among Member States: the Common European Asylum System

Abstract

The objective of the CEAS is to create a common set of rules regarding asylum. The expectation was that a common set of rules would result in equivalent outcomes in the Member States. But, twenty years on, and in the third phase of legislative reform of the CEAS, differences in recognition rates continue to be enormous. This undermines the legitimacy of the whole CEAS project. But it is not the end of the problem, differential treatment of beneficiaries of international protection by different Member States is resulting in people being forced to move from one Member State where they have received protection to another and seek asylum again there because there are no integration conditions in the Member State which has (often reluctantly) ostensibly given them protection the content of which is empty.