The Green Alternative to the Dublin System: A Preference Based Allocation System for Asylum Seekers within the EU

Together with her colleagues from the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament, Ska has launched a paper on the Green alternative to the Dublin system today. The Paper "The Green Alternative to the Dublin System - A Preference Based Allocation System for Asylum Seekers within the EU" can be read and downloaded online. You can find an additional Q&A to the paper here.

The Dublin system has been dysfunctional for years at great human and financial cost. It has effectively collapsed in the context of the current 'refugee crisis'. We do not advocate returning to 'pre-Dublin' days where it was not clear which Member State was responsible for examining an asylum application, but outline our vision for a new system based on solidarity and responsibility sharing between Member States and which, crucially, takes asylum seekers preferences into account. Without taking preferences into account it will be impossible to build a functional and sustainable system.                                                                           

We call for the following:

• A system based on a fair allocation of asylum seekers across EU Member States, based on objective criteria and binding on all Member States
• A system which is built around the existing ties and preferences of asylum seekers to a certain Member State
• A system which is based on incentives for asylum seekers to stay in "their" Member State rather than on coercive measures against their onward movement to another Member State
• An integrated EU asylum system to improve harmonisation and implementation of EU asylum legislation, including substantial integration measures
• Positive mutual recognition of asylum decisions so that beneficiaries of international protection can move Member States one year following their recognition as refugees
• Developing the current European Asylum Support Office into a fully-fledged EU asylum agency tasked with ensuring the functioning of the preference based allocation system and the EU asylum system in general