Addressing the Refugee Crisis by European Citizenship

In this chapter, I take a different approach in investigating European citizenship. I take up a particular European institution, the Dublin Regulations, which governs asylum in Europe in the context of the refugee crisis since 2015. I show that the criteria established by Dublin Regulations for determining the Member State responsible for an asylum application prevent asylum seekers from having a role in overcoming their predicament. Moreover, I show that the proposals for reforming the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) as a response to the crises such as the refugee quota system are also prone to the same problem. As a remedy, I offer a novel proposal to reform the CEAS in a way that enhances their agency. In the following sections, after a description of the current European legislation on asylum policies elaborated by EU institutions to face the crisis, the chapter will present and discuss the issues present in the CEAS and in the Dublin System. In the last sections, claiming the necessity of approaching to the problem by considering it also from the refugees’ standpoint and, I will propose to fill the encountered gaps by enlarging the set of rights granted to refugees with several rights classically attached to the concept of citizenship. The chapter will show how enabling refugees to enjoy a limited set of rights, jointly with a greater harmonisation of the laws and practices at European level, could help to improve significantly both Member States’ and refugees’ wellbeing.