Author: Salvatore Nicolosi

The past years have seen a progressive expansion of the operational powers of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO). As formerly discussed, EASO’s increasing involvement in the processing of asylum applications at the Greek Hotspots confirmed the need for Member States to integrate the EU support within their domestic system, while keeping the primary administrative responsibility for asylum applications. This trend toward EU direct enforcement is justified by the need to improve the implementation and overall functioning of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and has resulted in the adoption of Regulation 2021/2303 establishing the EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA). 

This short post explains how the powers of this new ‘fully-fledged’ agency may contribute to a better level of enforcement, though its normative setup does not fully reflect the practice of joint processing of asylum applications already undertaken by EASO.

Continue reading “The EU Agency for Asylum: A New Institutional Dress for Old Enforcement Tasks?”

The reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is one of the major regulatory challenges to the European Union (EU), which has continuously attracted academic attention (Nicolosi, 2019). Less consideration has been given to the dynamics of enforcement of that policy. Yet, this is a crucial issue, as acknowledged by the European Commission , the recent migratory pressure stressed the ‘structural weaknesses and shortcomings in the design and implementation of European asylum and migration policy’. Apart from a ‘protracted implementation deficit,’ EU asylum law has been suffering from a ‘protracted compliance deficit’ (Thym, 2017). This makes the need for a more effective enforcement strategy all the more urgent. This post, therefore, aims to explain whether EU direct enforcement mechanisms can be more effective than traditional forms of enforcement by State authorities.

Continue reading “Which enforcement strategy for the Common European Asylum System?”