Introduction The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and the Schengen travel area are in considerable jeopardy. The spontaneous arrival of approximately one million persons in 2015, 90% from the top refugee-producing countries of the world (UNHCR), has cruelly exposed their paradoxes and set in motion centrifugal forces that appear to threaten their very existence (The […]

The visit of the Turkish president, Tayyip Erdoğan, to Brussels on 4-6 October 2015 and his meetings with high-ranking EU officials caused an intense media discussion. The reason is the set of measures discussed by Turkish and European officials regarding current migration crisis management. The measures discussed, among others, include the collaboration between Turkey and […]

When, on 11 September 2015, the Polish prime minister signed a declaration of the Visegrad Group on the migration crisis in Europe, it seemed that the division between old and new Europe stood beyond repair. In the declaration, the countries opposed any form of obligatory refugee distribution in European Union. This act, together with repeated […]

The EU’s planned anti-smuggling military operation in Libya stands on fragile ground, both legally and politically. EU politicians, inspired by the UN Security Council’s 2008 anti-piracy resolution and the EU’s Operation ATALANTA, speak optimistically. However, as I argue in a recent post ‘The Legal and Political Feasibility of the EU’s Planned ‘War on Smuggling’ in […]

There has long been a public debate about how Palestinian refugees handle the tension between their integration in Jordan and their commitment to the Palestinian national predicament. In Jordan, there is a widely-held collective opinion that camp dwellers nurture anti-government sentiments. Local authorities, in particular, describe camp dwellers – male adolescents and young men especially […]