Seminar
Solidarity and Asylum Policy of the European Union
Seminar Room, Villa Malafrasca
via Boccaccio, 151 – Firenze
21 May 2014
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Description
Solidarity is one of the challenges facing European Union asylum policy and, knowing that it will be
impossible to build a truly Common European Asylum System without increased solidarity, it becomes
more and more relevant due to the growing tensions and distrust among Member States. While some
Member States ask for more solidarity, others answer that each Member State should first take on its
own responsabilities. While responsibility distribution is organised by the so-called Dublin system for
the examination of asylum requests, article 80 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
also provides a legal basis for the principle of solidarity. However, it has until now been implemented in a
piecemeal way without fully addressing the problem, in particular regarding financial solidarity.
With this informal seminar, the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) intends to launch a brainstorming
exercise on the possibilities of better implementing the principle of solidarity. Even though this event
will focus on its internal dimension between EU Member States, solidarity is of course also an issue for
International Refugee Law and Policy that has to be taken into consideration. International cooperation
to share burdens and responsibilities is equally difficult to implement between States at the level of the
international community. Needless to say, it is more than ever relevant with the current refugee crisis
from Syria that affects the neighbouring countries, while the EU focuses on financial rather than physical
solidarity despite some positive evolution regarding resettlement in some EU Member States.
The primary goal of the seminar is to discuss a model for tradable refugee quotas between EU Member
States that has been elaborated by economists attached to the MPC. The morning session will be devoted
to gaining a good understanding of this model and the possibilities of implementing it. The afternoon
session will address the issue of solidarity and the diverse ways in which it has been implemented until
now in the context of the European Asylum Policy in order to see what could be done in the future
to increase solidarity between Member States. On the basis of the results of the discussion, the MPC
will examine how it could follow up by launching a research project on the issue of solidarity in view,
for instance, of organising a European conference and/or of publishing a book or a special issue of a
journal during 2014-2016. Such a project would be particularly relevant as the EU will evaluate the Dublin
mechanism of responsibility distribution during this period.
Co-financed by the European Union
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Programme
First session on economic aspects
Chair: 09.00 09.10 09.30 Discussants: 10.30 10.45 12.30 13.00 Alessandra Venturini | Migration Policy Centre, RSCAS, EUI
Welcome and introduction of participants
What numbers say about refugees and solidarity
Philippe Fargues | Migration Policy Centre, RSCAS, EUI
Cameron Thibos | Migration Policy Centre, RSCAS, EUI
Tradable refugee-admission quotas in EU asylum policy
Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga | Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada
From an international refugee law perspective
James Hathaway | University of Michigan
From a world trade perspective
Bernard Hoekman | RSCAS, EUI
Coffee break
Round table
Preliminary conclusions
Alessandra Venturini
Lunch
Second session on legal and policy aspects of solidarity
Chair: Iván Martín | Migration Policy Centre, RSCAS, EUI
14.00 Solidarity in EU asylum policy
Philippe De Bruycker | Migration Policy Centre, RSCAS, EUI
Discussant: Madeline Garlick | Radboud University Nijmegen and Migration Policy Institute Europe
14.45 Round table
16.00 Coffee break
16.15
Preliminary conclusions and perspectives for future work
Philippe De Bruycker
16.30 General discussion
17.00 End of seminar
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Participants
Sara Bonfanti
Philippe De Bruycker
Philippe Fargues
Jesús Fernández Huetas
Madeline Garlick
James Hathaway
Anna Kocharov
Francesco Maiani
Sergo Mananshvili
Iván Martín
Kris Pollet
Géraldine Renaudière
Eiko Thielemann
Lilian Tsourdi
Patricia Van de Peer
Alessandra Venturini
Research Assistant, MPC
Deputy-Director, Part-time Professor, MPC
Director, MPC
Research Fellow, Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada
Researcher, Radboud University Nijmegen and Fellow, MPI Europe
Professor, University of Michigan
Researcher, Law Department
Assistant Professor, University of Lausanne
Research Assistant, MPC
Part-time Professor, MPC
Senior Legal & Policy Officer, European Council on Refugees and Exiles
Research Assistant, MPC
Associate Professor, London School of Economics
Researcher, Université Catholique de Louvain and PhD Candidate,
Université Libre de Bruxelles
Administrator, Secretariat of the LIBE Committee of the European Parliament
Deputy-Director, Part-time Professor, MPC