The Common European Asylum System and the failure to protect: Bulgaria’s Syrian refugee crisis

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate European Union's asylum framework and its national implementation in the case of Bulgaria; to demonstrate that national implementation is actually consistent with the deficiencies of the supranational framework; and to interrogate the normative struggle that, as the article argues, is in the root of the European failure to respond adequately to the ongoing refugee crisis. Using critical policy analysis (content and discourse) complemented by historical analysis of a recent political development, the article engages with the 'policy malintegration' within the Common European Asylum System produced in the context of refugee crisis in the case of Bulgaria. The article argues that the discrepancy between purpose and implementation in the national application of the EU framework is to be understood not so much as 'malintegration', but as a particular vision of European integration that is struggling against the idea of liberalizing asylum. Sustained by an overall uncertainty about the fate of the EU project, by economic crisis, and by nationalist ('xeno-racist') narratives on migration, such a vision of the Europeanization of asylum is bound to produce paradoxes. As the case study will demonstrate, it has effectively worked against the adequate provision of refugee protection, and against the credible Europeanization of asylum.

Too Much or Too Little Integration? EU and ASEAN Responses to the 2015 Migration Crisis: A Comparative Analysis

“…The European Union framework on asylum consists of three levels, international, supranational and national (Nancheva, 2015;Langford, 2013), and can be analyzed from legal, institutional and functional perspectives� Legal. The legal basis for European asylum policy is enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Art� 67 (2) and 78; EU, 2012) and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (Art� 18;EU, 2000) with strong reference to core international legal instruments in this area, the Geneva Convention of 1951, the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967, and the non-refoulement principle� The legal instruments consist of directives, regulations and decisions that cover many issues and that in most cases provide answers to emerging prob-lems and issues� Most recent are the European Council decisions and proposed regulations that addressed the European migration crisis� EU secondary law has a profound impact on national asylum policy, since it must be transposed to domestic legislation in the context of procedures, reception, treatment, and protection of refugees� The member states' close cooperation on asylum is framed by the Lisbon Treaty, which transformed the measures on asylum into a common policy� Institutional.…”

“…The legal basis for European asylum policy is enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Art� 67 (2) and 78; EU, 2012) and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (Art� 18;EU, 2000) with strong reference to core international legal instruments in this area, the Geneva Convention of 1951, the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967, and the non-refoulement principle� The legal instruments consist of directives, regulations and decisions that cover many issues and that in most cases provide answers to emerging prob-lems and issues� Most recent are the European Council decisions and proposed regulations that addressed the European migration crisis� EU secondary law has a profound impact on national asylum policy, since it must be transposed to domestic legislation in the context of procedures, reception, treatment, and protection of refugees� The member states' close cooperation on asylum is framed by the Lisbon Treaty, which transformed the measures on asylum into a common policy� Institutional. While from a legal point of view the milestone for European asylum policy was the Treaty of Lisbon, from an institutional point of view the milestone was the Treaty of Amsterdam, which shifted visa, immigration and asylum policy from the EU's intergovernmental third pillar to the first pillar and provided EU institutions with new competencies in asylum and migration policy� The Lisbon Treaty changed the way the Council of the European Union decides in the immigration and asylum area from the unanimity required by the Treaty of Nice to qualified majority voting� That is, individual member states have no veto power on asylum and immigration and must accept decisions even if they are contrary to their interests� What is more, the institutional dimension of European Asylum policy is strongly influenced by the interplay between supranational and national governance (Nancheva, 2015;Langford, 2013)� While member states are bound by European regulations, they are reluctant to further "Europeanize" asylum due to their fears of losing sovereign control over such a sensitive issue as immigration� Functional. The aim of EU asylum policy is to harmonize asylum procedures in member states by establishing common asylum arrangements� This work was initiated in 1999� During the next six years (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005), several legislative measures harmonizing common minimum standards for asylum were adopted� These include the Temporary Protection Directive that allowed for a common EU response to a mass influx of displaced people unable to return to their country of origin (EU, 2001) and the creation of the European Refugee Fund (EU, 2007) aimed at strengthening financial solidarity between member states� The establishment of the new common European asylum system -CEAS 1 -was completed in 2013 with the adoption of the amended Dublin Regulation and the Regulation on Eurodac -European Dactyloscopy� European regional governance also includes the protection of the EU's external border� Despite the fact the main responsibility still rests with states, some competencies in this area have been granted to Frontex� Its main responsibility is to facilitate cooperation between border authorities in member states� While n...…”

EU’s Disunited Response to the 2015 Refugee Crisis: A View from the Perspective of the Psychological Theory of DID

“…The CEAS established minimum standards and procedures for processing and ruling on asylum applications and for the treatment of asylum seekers/recognized refugees. Yet CEAS compliance diverges across the EU (for elaboration, see Nancheva [, p. 5]). Also, after 2007, and especially during the “refugee crisis” of 2015, the Europeanization of immigration and asylum policy aroused political tensions.…”

Rupture and Continuity: Positioning Hungarian Border Policy in the European Union

“…As with the other new member states of the EU, also the development of the Hungarian asylum policy was inevitably contingent upon the development of the European border regime, and adhering to the constantly developing EU asylum acquis constituted a pre-condition for the postsocialist countries to join the European Union in the 2000s. Analysts have remarked on the paradoxical adoption of the asylum acquis, including expectations of new member states to receive large numbers of asylum seekers but work with a legislation that is essentially targeted at keeping them at bay (Lavenex, 1999;Nancheva, 2015). I argue that the Hungarian border policy is a continuation of the logic of externalization, and creates temporary migrant multiplicities in border zones.…”

“…Nevena Nancheva (2015) analyses the asylum system in Bulgaria, also sometimes dubbed as 'not European' in the media, and notorious for violence at the border, poor asylum expertise, long periods of detention, and poor or inexistent integration support. Nancheva brings forth a similar argument to my own: while the Bulgarian government should not be denied agency and responsibility, the 'inhuman' asylum system of Bulgaria still needs to be examined in the context in which it has been created, namely that of European Union.…”