The EU Migration and Asylum Crisis (2015–2016)

The European migration and asylum crisis of 2015–2016 was the most severe challenge to the EU’s system of migration and asylum governance since the establishment of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). Over 1.3 million applications for international protection were lodged in the EU in 2015, more than double the number in 2014, driven by the Syrian civil war, instability in Afghanistan and Iraq, and conditions in parts of Africa. The crisis exposed the deficiencies of the Dublin system for determining responsibility for asylum applications, the uneven distribution of asylum-seekers across Member States, and the absence of effective mechanisms for solidarity and burden-sharing. The EU’s response — including relocation decisions, the EU-Turkey Statement, and hotspot approach — generated intense political and legal controversy and prompted fundamental reforms to the CEAS.

The Dublin System Under Pressure

The Dublin Regulation (Regulation 604/2013, Dublin III) establishes criteria for determining which Member State is responsible for examining an asylum application, based primarily on the Member State through which the applicant first entered the EU. The system was designed on the assumption that Member States would have broadly similar capacity and that external border controls would be effective. The 2015 crisis demonstrated that both assumptions were wrong: Member States at the EU’s external borders — particularly Greece and Italy — were overwhelmed by arrivals, while other Member States resisted accepting transfers of asylum-seekers from the front-line states.

The Court of Justice addressed the systemic deficiencies of the Dublin system in N.S. v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Cases C-411/10 and C-493/10), holding that Member States could not transfer asylum-seekers to Greece where there were substantial grounds for believing that systemic deficiencies in the asylum system would expose them to a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. The judgment effectively suspended Dublin transfers to Greece for several years, placing additional pressure on the Greek asylum system and creating a de facto suspension of the Dublin rules for southern Member States.

The Hotspot Approach

The hotspot approach was developed by the Commission in May 2015 as an operational response to the crisis. Hotspots were reception and identification centres established in Greece and Italy where European Asylum Support Office (EASO), Frontex, Europol, and Eurojust teams worked alongside national authorities to rapidly register, fingerprint, and identify arriving migrants. The hotspot approach aimed to ensure systematic registration (including fingerprinting under Eurodac), efficient processing of asylum applications, and effective returns of irregular migrants not requiring international protection.

The hotspot approach was implemented through operational plans agreed with the host Member States. Hotspots on the Greek islands — Moria on Lesbos, Vial on Chios, and others — processed hundreds of thousands of arrivals but were criticised for overcrowding, inadequate reception conditions, and restrictions on the freedom of movement of asylum-seekers. The European Court of Human Rights and the CJEU received multiple applications challenging conditions in the hotspots, leading to judgments requiring improvements in reception capacity and procedural guarantees.

Relocation Decisions

The Council adopted two relocation decisions in September 2015 (Decision 2015/1523) and September 2015 (Decision 2015/1601) establishing a temporary emergency relocation mechanism for 160,000 asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy to other Member States. The decisions were adopted by qualified majority voting over the objections of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. The relocation mechanism was the first mandatory solidarity measure in EU asylum law, requiring Member States to accept allocated quotas of asylum-seekers who had a high probability of being granted international protection.

The relocation decisions were challenged by Hungary and Slovakia before the Court of Justice in Slovakia and Hungary v Council (Cases C-643/15 and C-647/15). The Court upheld the decisions in September 2017, holding that the emergency relocation mechanism was a proportionate response to a crisis that threatened the functioning of the CEAS and that Article 78(3) TFEU provided a sufficient legal basis. Despite the Court’s ruling, actual relocations fell far short of the targets: by the time the mechanism ended in September 2017, only approximately 35,000 asylum-seekers had been relocated.

The EU-Turkey Statement

The EU-Turkey Statement of 18 March 2016 was the most politically significant and legally controversial element of the crisis response. The Statement provided that all irregular migrants arriving on the Greek islands after 20 March 2016 would be returned to Turkey, that for every Syrian returned to Turkey from Greece, one Syrian would be resettled from Turkey to the EU (the “one-for-one” mechanism), that Turkey would receive €6 billion in financial assistance for refugee facilities, and that visa liberalisation for Turkish nationals would be accelerated and accession negotiations revived.

The legal character of the EU-Turkey Statement was challenged before the General Court in NF v European Council (Case T-192/16). The General Court held that the Statement was not an act of the European Council or the Council but an intergovernmental agreement concluded by the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, acting in their national capacities, together with Turkey. The CJEU confirmed on appeal that the Statement fell outside the scope of EU law for the purposes of Article 263 TFEU, leaving the Statement’s legal character as a matter of international law rather than EU law.

Border Management and Frontex

The crisis prompted significant strengthening of EU border management. The European Border and Coast Guard (Regulation 2016/1624) was established in September 2016, transforming Frontex from a coordination agency into an operational body with the capacity to deploy staff and equipment to Member States facing disproportionate migratory pressure. The Regulation introduced a vulnerability assessment mechanism allowing the agency to assess Member States’ border management capacity and require remedial action. The deployment of border guards without Member State consent was possible where the Commission had determined that deficiencies in border control threatened the functioning of the Schengen area, though this power has not yet been exercised.