The European Union’s Response to the Refugee Movements from Ukraine: The End of the Solidarity Crisis?
The European Union’s Response to the Refugee Movements from Ukraine: The End of the Solidarity Crisis?

Summary/Abstract: This article explores whether triggering the ‘Temporary Protection’ Directive (TPD) to deal with therefugee movements from Ukraine has heralded the end of the solidarity crisis in the European Union’sasylum policy. It makes two major contributions to the literature: first, it shows how the mode ofresponsibility allocation in the Common European Asylum System by a costs-by-cause principle violatesthe EU’s solidarity principle, creating a continuous solidarity crisis that was exacerbated after the refugeeinflux of 2015/2016. Second, it demonstrates how, by invoking the TPD, the EU exhibits continuity in botheroding asylum cooperation and putting increasing emphasis on border controls focusing primarily on theexternalisation and deflection of unwanted migration. The EU evades the dysfunctionalities in its asylumsystem by employing the temporary protection scheme, continuing a policy approach of more nationaldiscretion in terms of refugee protection while, at the same time, Member States’ policy preferences vis-à-visnon-Ukrainian protection-seekers have not changed. Taking into account the disproportionate distributionof responsibilities it has created among the Member States, the TPD decision has not ended the solidaritycrisis in Europe’s asylum policy.

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