Solidarity and fairness in the Common European Asylum System – failure or progress?

Abstract

On the basis of harmonised statistical data on asylum applications and decisions, this paper attempts to re-examine the state of play of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), and in particular, the two key objectives of achieving a more balanced distribution of asylum seekers across Member States (“solidarity”) and the approximation of national decision-making in asylum cases (“fairness”). It concludes that while there is evidence of unresolved challenges, such as lately with regard to the uneven reception and treatment of asylum seekers from Syria, some fragile trends of progress can be detected in terms of more uniform asylum outcomes.