Governing Asylum with (or without) Solidarity? The Difficult Path of Relocation Schemes, Between Enforcement and Contestation

Abstract

The progressive emergence of EU policies on migration, asylum and visa is based upon the Schengen integration process, which has conceptualized the EU’s common external border as a juxtaposition of the MS ones. Upon this premise, the EU has developed the Common European Asylum System (C.E.A.S.) with several instruments, without putting solidarity at the core of the system, but rather holding onto the ‘chacun pour soi’ logic, which implies that states geographically bordering with the Global South are also the ones that deal with the irregular migration phenomenon first. The aim of this article is to take stock of the attempts to operationalize solidarity in the last few years, after the so-called migration crisis of 2015-2016, which soon turned into a political battlefield. The article discusses this difficult path of solidarity, together with the stalemate of the reform of the Dublin system, and the challenges it represents for the EU integration process, since states increasingly look for ad hoc or bricolage solutions besides EU law.