The European Union and the “unprecedented migratory and refugee crisis”: brief chronicle of a rupture of the Common European Asylum System

Abstract

This paper reassesses the constitutional foundations of the EU common policy on asylum, subsidiary and temporary protection and critically reviews the legislative acts under which the Common European Asylum System – as a normative expression of said policy – is structured. The so-called “unprecedented migratory and refugee crisis” that defined 2015 and is still ongoing – with no end in sight – has shown several weak aspects of the aforementioned system as well as its inability to meet such crisis. Notwithstanding, several measures of different nature aiming at that particular purpose have been adopted at the EU level. These measures are evaluated at the end of the paper together with the controversy they entail.