Europe's Failure to Harmonize: A Qualitative Exploration of the Factors Contributing to the Impotence of the Common European Asylum System

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Gardella, Jennifer
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science

Abstract

Despite the completion of two phases spanning nearly fourteen years, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) has yet to result in a real, tangible, and widespread improvement of the outcomes for asylum seekers who petition for protective status in the European Union (EU). Efforts to harmonize the national asylum policies of the individual EU Member States along a uniform set of basic, minimum standards of protection have stalled, and asylum seekers continue to be denied the protection guaranteed to them under international humanitarian law. This paper explores the reasons for this failure to harmonize and points to several national and supranational context factors - both domestic and external - that are convalescing in such a way to render the CEAS rather impotent, ultimately demonstrating that the overall quality of care and protection offered to asylum seekers in Europe still leaves much to be desired and requires immediate attention.

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