Why has the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive not been applied during the migration crisis in order to receive Syrians and other asylum seekers?
Posted: 10 June, 2016 Filed under: Clara Burbano-Herrera | Tags: asylum, civil war, Council of the European Union, Directive on Temporary Protection, EU, EU states, European Asylum Support Office, European Commission, Europol, Frontex, immigration, irregular border crossings, Kosovo, Mediterranean, migrants, migration crisis, refugees, Syria, Turkey, UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, war, Yugoslavia 1 CommentAuthor: Clara Burbano-Herrera
Fulbright Fellow, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University; Visiting researcher, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg); and FWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University
The EU Border Agency Frontex indicates that a total of 1.83 million irregular border crossings were detected at the EU’s external borders in 2015, compared to 283 500 in 2014. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 1 015 078 people reached Europe irregularly in 2015 by crossing the Mediterranean, while a further 3 771 are believed to have drowned attempting the same journey. The main country of origin of applicants in EU+ countries (the 28 EU Member States as well as Norway and Switzerland) was Syria.