What is the reason for the divergent responses of Member States to the Refugee Crisis?

: A critique of the Common European Asylum System during the 2015 Refugee Crisis

Abstract

This study seeks to reflect an analytical exercise to find out, in detail, the reason for the divergent responses of Member States to the Refugee crisis during the years 2015 to 2017. Furthermore, it had secondary objectives: i) to Investigate the means of communication that can and might prevent future crises; ii) To investigate the reasons for the differentiation in strategy between member states for internal and foreign policy reasons. The work intends to analyse in detail the different behaviours of Member States towards the Refugee Crisis to develop a future proposal to avoid such a gap in the European asylum system and avoid a divergent response of Member States towards the Humanitarian Crisis shortly.
In this Master's dissertation, we made a combination of methods and techniques used in social sciences. The procedure for the collection and processing of data was based on: i) bibliographic, documentary and news analysis; ii) analysis of available statistical data on migration in the European Union, and more in-depth for the following Member States: Germany, Italy and Hungary; iii) direct interviews with an individual actor. As a result of the war in Syria and Iraq, the civil war in Afghanistan, the dictatorial regime in Eritrea or as a result of the political, religious and human rights violations pressures carried out by the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the instability experienced in the Middle East has produced one of the most significant migratory movements recorded towards
Europe. In 2015 more than 1,300,000 asylum seekers entered European territory via Greece and Italy, by sea and land, and it is estimated that more than 3,700 people died at the Mediterranean Sea crossing. This migratory movement has provoked two types of reactions. On the one hand, those who felt threatened found answers in the growing extremist and populist movements. And
on the other, those who have asked European leaders for a more outstanding commitment to respect human rights and our international obligations in protecting those seeking refuge in Europe.

Date of Award	16 Mar 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Nuno Sampaio (Supervisor)