EU Member States have legal obligations towards people seeking protection. These stem from having joined the EU and the Council of Europe as well as having signed and ratified international human rights conventions. In this report, Professor of Law Elspeth Guild and Lecturer in Law Maja Grundler set out the minimum standards of international protection applicable to EU members. (2024:1)

Under the pressure of an increased number of irregular arrivals and asylum applications in 2022, and while negotiations on the reform of the Common European Asylum System are ongoing, the EU is – again – searching for solutions outside EU territory. SIEPS senior researcher Bernd Parusel recapitulates the ‘external dimension’ of EU migration policy and discusses some of the ideas currently on the table. (February 2023)

Condemned for complicity in illegal practices, Frontex recently lost its executive director over accusations of misconduct. A dilemma faces his replacement: where fundamental rights are at risk, should the agency stay, and attempt to remedy the situation, or withdraw, to avoid being complicit? (2022:22epa)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced millions of people to flee, most of them into the EU. In response, European leaders activated the Temporary Protection Directive, granting those fleeing the right to live in safety there. Valeriia Varfolomieieva, Research Assistant in Law at SIEPS, explains how this hitherto little-known directive works. (April 2022)

The number of refugees that have reached the borders of the EU during 2015 and 2016 have put the international asylum system to the test. How individual member states respond to the calls to help people on the run, expose differences in how these states interpret international refugee laws.

This report proposes a way to break the current refugee crisis deadlock between EU Member States. The authors explore ways in which physical and financial solidarity among EU Member States can be combined and propose a mechanism that allows for an exchange of refugee-admission quotas for monetary contributions.

This European policy analysis provides an overview of how smuggling has been framed over time in the European Union, and questions what the effects are of criminalising human smuggling for the protection of international migrants. The author finds that policies that effectively aim at reducing human smuggling must consider the push and pull factors for migration.

While there are many benefits to free mobility, it may also facilitate cross-border criminality. Human trafficking is today the third biggest international criminal activity and it is also one of the most profitable.

Unauthorized immigration is on the rise again in the EU. This European policy analysis surveys economic aspects of irregular immigration to the EU and draws on important lessons from the U.

EU enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe intensifies debates mired in the past.  A forgotten source is the earlier stability strategy by Western powers:  the shift to homogeneous nation-states and ethnic unmixing.