The European Asylum Support Office
In the CEAS, the EASO plays one of the main roles, the idea of its foundation goes back to 1999, when the heads of states and governments decided on it in the council meeting in Tampere, and thereafter in 2004, within the framework of the Hague programme the deci-sion was taken on the establishment of EASO, as the main institution in the area of asylum.
In the first quarter of 2010, the European Parliament and the Council decided on its establishment, the regulation on the operation of the EASO52 came into power in June 2011, and on 1 February 2011 EASO, as the Office of the European Union, became functional with the headquarters in Valetta, on Malta.
According to the regulation establishing the EASO, the Office was created, “in order to help to improve the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (the CEAS), to strengthen practical cooperation among Member States on asylum and to provide and/
50 European Parliament (Proposal) 2017.
51 Ibid.
52 Official Journal of the European Union vol. 53. L 132 Regulation 439/2010 EU on the Establishment of the European Parliament and of the Council, Establishing a European Asylum Support Office. Available: http://
eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L:2010:132:TOC (Accessed: 21.11.2017)
or coordinate the provision of operational support to Member States subject to particular pressure on their asylum and reception systems”.53
As one of its main activities, EASO helps MSs in particular pressure, in this case, the first asylum supports were provided to Luxembourg and Sweden in 2012, which were followed by Bulgaria and Italy in 2013, and by Cyprus in 2014. Since 2015 the EASO has played a central role in the implementation of the Migration Agenda on Europe and the hotspot approach in Greece and Italy.
The establishment of the hotspots is, as a matter of fact, a pilot project; this type of asy-lum registration centres had not been operational in the EU previously, and its development and possibilities for change are still open. The EASO supports the implementation of CEAS by applying a bottom-up approach in order to ensure the decision on asylum applications according to the same principles.
Within the framework of the permanent support, EASO provides common trainings with the help of common training material in order to ensure the common quality of the asylum procedure. Within the special support programme, it provides support in capacity building and in relocations, within the scope of a tailor-made, country specific programme, it delivers quality control tools to the MSs in need, as well.
In the emergency support programme, it organises solidarity for Member States subject to particular pressures by providing assistance to repair or rebuild asylum and reception systems. As part of the permanent asylum support, the EASO follows the tendencies in the field of asylum, and collects data on it. Based on the collected data, it publishes the Latest Asylum Trends, analyses on its homepage, but the national authorities responsible for the management of international migration are provided with the extended and confidential version of this publication.
EASO supports the external dimension of the CEAS by collaborating with third coun-tries, to reach common solutions with the help of building regional protection programmes, and coordinating MSs initiatives on resettlement.
This aim of the CEAS was outlined by the Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship in November 2014 as well, when he mentioned that the Committee should work on a strategy which strengthens the capability of the EU to answer for crisis situations, and especially to support the capability of EASO in cooperation with third-countries.
In the crisis situation caused by the irregular migration, EASO played and still plays an important role in the hotspot approach.54
The hotspots support the MSs hosting the asylum support teams to register and pro-cess the asylum applications. By creating the hotspots, the EASO ensures the coordination between the participating experts in the Asylum Support Teams and technical means de-ployed by the Agency in the framework of EASO Hotspot Operating Plan. Currently, there are functional hotspots in two MSs: there are five of them in both Italy and Greece. The reception capacity of the hotspots in Italy is 1,600 persons, while in Greece a total of 7,450.55
53 Official Journal of the European Union (H).
54 The hotspot approach was initiated by the Council on its meeting in 25–26 June 2015 and afterwards it was supported in the note by the Commissioner for Migration Home Affairs and Citizenship in June 2015.
55 State of play of the hotspots, 2017.
Beyond the experts of EASO, the staff of FRONTEX, Europol and Eurojust56 partic-ipate in the work of the hotspots in close cooperation with local experts. The staffs of the collaborating institutions with the local experts conduct the registration of the potential asylum applicants, take fingerprints and if needed, they organize the return of the person in question.
If the registered persons apply for asylum, the EASO experts support the smooth con-duct of the procedure and for those not eligible for international protection, the FRONTEX organizes their return to the country of origin or to a safe third-country. The Europol and Eurojust staffs cooperate in exploring the human smuggling and trafficking networks.
Table 1.
The capacity and number of staff in Italy as of 23 October 2017, the row EU presence contains the number of experts from EASO (EASO Staff and MS Experts)
Hotspots operating in Italy
Lampedusa Pozzalo Taranto Trapani Messina
Capacity 500 300 400 400
EU presence 5 experts 7 experts 4 experts 9 experts 2 experts FRONTEX presence 18 experts 24 experts 13 experts 21 experts
Source: European Commission, State of play of the hotspots, 2017
Table 2.
The capacity and number of staff in Greece as of 23 October 2017, the row EU presence contains the number of experts from EASO (EASO Staff and MS Experts)
Hotspots in Greece
Lesvos Chios Samos Leros Kos
Capacity 1500 1100 850 1000 1000
EU presence 143 experts 114 experts 113 experts 50 experts 67 experts FRONTEX presence 105 experts 63 experts 32 experts 16 experts 17 experts
Source: European Commission, State of play of the hotspots, 2017
The concentration of the hotspots is noticeable in Greece, whose necessity is obviously ow-ing to the geographical situation of the country, and the high number of irregular migrants who disembark there.
The hotspots approach did not manage to successfully solve the crisis situation caused by the mass influx of irregular migrants in view of the following:
1. One of the reasons of the creation of hotspots was the sustainable relocation of the asylum seekers to the EU MSs (and accordingly, to the states of the Dublin area);
however, the statistical data indicate that only a small part of the irregular mig-rants were relocated to another MS: until October 2017, 30 thousand persons were
56 The European Union’s Judicial Cooperation Unit. Available: http://eurojust.europa.eu/Pages/home.aspx (Ac-cessed: 21.11.2017)
relocated:57 about 21 thousand (asylum seekers) from Greece and slightly above 10 thousand from Italy. The biggest destination countries of the relocated persons so far, are Germany (4,838 persons), France (4,091 persons) and Belgium (1,700 persons). Certainly the success of the relocation programmes widely depends on the cooperation of the receiving countries.
2. The hotspots were also criticised for selecting the asylum applicants based on ci-tizenship categories – although this is one of their responsibilities – and for taking decisions without examining individual cases.
3. It is also outlined by the critics that the role of the EASO is overrepresented in the decision-making process (although apparently the Commission’s aim is to strengthen the role of EASO on deciding the admissibility and on the in-merit procedure), while these decisions can only be reached by the authorities of the receiving countries.
4. The operation of the hotspots is not regulated in a single law, but in several diffe-rent laws; on the one hand, this legal background enables flexibility for them, on the other hand, a single law would ensure a more discrete situation.
5. There are huge differences in the financing of the deployed authorities and the ex-perts seconded by them in the hotspots. This is also true for EASO and FRONTEX, but even truer for Europol and Eurojust. Their role and responsibilities should be defined more thoroughly and the way of cooperation between them should also be regulated better.58
The FRONTEX
The other decisive institution in the field of institutional cooperation is FRONTEX, which is also an important part of the hotspot system. FRONTEX was established by the Council with regulation 2007/2004 EC of 26 October 2004, as the agency for the management of operational cooperation at the external borders of the European Union. This regulation was overruled by regulation 1624/2016 EU, which established the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
The main duties of FRONTEX include monitoring migratory flows and carrying out risk analyses regarding all aspects of the integrated border management; it also carries out vulnerability assessments, including the readiness of the MSs to face threats. It also deploys liaison officers in the MSs who monitor the management of the external borders.
The Agency supports search and rescue operations preventing humanitarian catastro-phes. To be able to do this, it can deploy European Border and Coast Guard Teams within the framework of migration management teams, including rapid border intervention teams.
It provides operational and technical support for the MSs controlling the external borders of the European Union and assists them fulfilling their return operation. During the joint return operations, it controls the implementation of the returns in cooperation with the return experts and with the staff responsible for implementing the return.
57 Available: www.easo.europa.eu/easo-relocation (Accessed: 27.10.2017)
58 European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) 2016, 51.
In the hotspot areas FRONTEX conducts the first screening, debriefing, identification and fingerprinting of the asylum applicants in cooperation with the EASO and the national authorities. It fights against organised cross-border crime and terrorism at the external borders in cooperation with Europol and Eurojust. Furthermore, it is responsible for the development of the EUROSUR59 and the interoperability of the system which is a common information-sharing environment. The tasks of FRONTEX also include a strong external dimension, because the Agency’s task is the improvement of the cooperation between the MSs and third-countries.
The relation between FRONTEX and the MSs is twofold, because the MSs are obliged to avoid any activity which could endanger the agency’s activity, in connection with the responsibilities of FRONTEX, and they also have to inform the agency about any operational actions carried out outside the scope of FRONTEX.
The activity of FRONTEX in practice: Schengen countries are obliged to control the external borders of the Schengen area. The primary responsibility of border control lies with the Schengen countries that have an external border (including land and sea borders and international airports). FRONTEX plays a role in border control when experts and technical equipment are needed at the external border affected by high migration pressure.
FRONTEX also supports the capacity of the MSs of controlling the external borders by trainings and sharing the best practices.
FRONTEX joint operations are planned on the basis of FRAN (Annual Risk Analysis Network), which analyses the likely future risk of irregular migration and cross-border crime. The actions of FRONTEX are planned in negotiation with the MSs, during this process, FRONTEX assesses the expert staff and equipment needed. According to the risk assessment, FRONTEX prepares the action plan in which it decides on the type of experts (interviewers, cultural mediators and/or interpreters) needed. The FRONTEX experts work under the command of the hosting country’s authorities. The guest officers perform all tasks, and exercise all powers for border checks or border surveillance in accordance with Schengen Borders Code.
Rapid intervention: in case of mass influx of irregular migrants, FRONTEX may deploy European Border Guard Teams (EBGT). The decision to deploy EBGTs for a rapid intervention is made by the Executive Director of FRONTEX, the final decision is preceded by a number of procedural steps. Members of the teams perform tasks under instructions from and in the presence of border guards of the MS requesting assistance. The role of FRONTEX in the hotspots approach of the management of mass influx of irregular migrants was substantial, because FRONTEX performed the following tasks:
• It carried out the fingerprinting and interviewing of the asylum applicants.
• In the management of the crisis caused by the mass inflow of irregular migrants, FRONTEX also deployed intercultural mediators and interpreters.
59 EUROSUR (European Border Surveillance System) is the information-exchange framework designed to improve the management of Europe’s external borders. It aims to support Member States by increasing their situational awareness and reaction capability in combating cross-border crime, tackling irregular migration.
The backbone of EUROSUR is a network of National Coordination Centres (NCCs). The EUROSUR was established by 1052/2013 EU regulation. Available: http://frontex.europa.eu/intelligence/eurosur/ (Accessed:
22.11.2017)
• The crisis of the institutions of the European Union managing irregular migration strengthened FRONTEX, its budget increased to a great extent, while in 2015 it could spend 111 million Euro on operational activities, this amount doubled to 209 million Euro in 2016.
• According to the current plans, the number of its staff will be increased to 1,000 persons, which is quite a reasonable plan, taking the current tendencies into account, because one-third of its 488 persons staff was employed during 2016.60 Evidently, FRONTEX is to be reformed and built into an agency fully responsible for the control of the external borders of the EU (see the speech of Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission on 9 September 2015 in the European Parliament).61 Obviously, the feasibility of this idea is disputable.
• This plan would result in the establishment of a new law enforcement institution collaborating or extending those of the MSs but it has to be taken into account that the approach highlighting only the law enforcement aspect of irregular migration would not be a sustainable solution of the problem.
The Europol
The other institutional actor of the hotspot approach is the Europol, which plays an active role in the fight against human trafficking and international human smuggling networks.
The agreement on the establishment of the Europol was signed on 26 July 1995, after long multilateral negotiations between the MSs. After ratification by the MSs, the agreement came into power on 1 October 1998, and Europol became functional on 1 July 1999 with the headquarters in The Hague.
In the meeting of the Council of the Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs in 2006, a decision was made by the Council to replace the agreement and actually the decision establishing the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) was adopted in 2009 and accordingly Europol became the budgetary agency of the EU from 1 January 2010.
The task of Europol is to support the MSs in the fight against organized crime, terror-ism and in the prevention and fight against dangerous criminal activities affecting two or more MSs. Europol collects different types of operational data on criminal activities and supports the criminal investigation of the MSs by providing assistance to the national units.62
Europol’s tasks are the requests of the responsible authorities of the MSs for the implementation of investigation, exchange of crime related operational information and providing assistance for the MSs in accordance with high volume international events, and the development of strategic assessment and situational reports.
Each MS establishes a national unit which is an institution liaising between the Europol and the national authorities and the MSs deploy liaison officers to the Europol, who build the national liaison offices at the Europol and work under the national law of the sending MS.
60 FRONTEX (E), 8.
61 European Commission 2015.
62 Nagy Judit (2014): The Europol. In Hollán Miklós: The EU as the Area of Ensuring Freedom, Security and the Role of Law, Hungary in the European Union 2004–2014. Budapest, NKE. 139.
Since 2013 the Europol has developed the SOCTA (Serious Organized Crime Threat Assessment), which provides an overall picture about the criminal threats affecting the EU.
The staff of the Europol can participate in common investigation teams, the members of which are entitled to support the investigation and share information with the other members of the team under the law of the hosting country.63
In accordance with its activity the Europol also cooperates with many other internation-al organizations and third-countries. The memorandums of cooperation can be distinguished on the basis of the type of information exchange; on the one hand, there are strategic agree-ments, which enable the exchange of all types of data except personal data, and on the other hand, there are operational agreements which enable the exchange of personal data, as well.
Beyond many agreements with third-countries, the Europol also cooperates with ten in-stitutions of the EU, among others the CEPOL, the OLAF, the Eurojust and the FRONTEX.
The European Migrant Smuggling Centre
“The goal of the European Migrant Smuggling Centre (EMSC) is to support EU Member States in targeting and dismantling the complex and sophisticated criminal networks in-volved in migrant smuggling.”64
The Centre was formed in February 2016, in response to the unprecedented increase in the number of irregular migrants arriving in the EU since 2014. The Europol’s researches indicate that 90% of this unexpectedly high number of irregular migrants arrived in the EU with the help of human-smuggling networks and indeed that is why the fight against human-smuggling is one of the key priority of the EU.
The EMSC provides help to MSs, to improve the way they exchange information and it facilitates increased collaboration among MSs themselves, and between international organisations. In the Joint Operation Teams (JOT), seven states cooperate within the scope of EMSC, and share important information on human-smuggling networks departing from Turkey, Lybia and North Africa.
As an information centre, the EMSC provides help to the regional action teams in Catania and Pireus, in identifying human-smuggling networks and in asylum related support, with sharing secret information originating from intelligence and participating in criminal investigations. In the fight against human-smuggling, Europol closely cooperates with EASO, FRONTEX and Europol within the framework of this cooperation, it deploys Europol Mobile Investigation Teams and Europol Mobile Assessment Teams to the MSs.
The role of Europol in the hotspot approach
The Europol provides support to the MSs in the criminal investigations and it may deploy JOTs to the hotspots, which implement the following activities:
63 Nagy (2014): op. cit. 139.
64 Europol 2015.
• They share information with the collaborating authorities to identify criminal activi-ties and prevent human-smuggling, and to prevent secondary movement of migrants.
• It enables direct access to the database of Europol for the cooperating institutions.
• It strengthens the possibility of joint operations with the collaborating institutions.
• In the framework of the hotspot approach the EASO, the FRONTEX, and the Europol work complementing each other, the EASO helps carry out the asylum procedure, FRONTEX identifies the asylum applicants and Europol supports the intelligence of human-smuggling networks and persons in contact with terrorist organizations.
Conclusions
It can be established that the crisis caused by the irregular migration in 2015 and in the following years, cannot be called crisis regarding the volume of the events, because Eu-rope and the EuEu-ropean Union with its economic and demographic power (with more than 510 million inhabitants) should be able to manage a yearly inflow of 1–1.4 million irregular migrants or potential asylum seekers.
The collapse of the system (the CEAS and other systems may be listed here) did not take place: it was avoidable due to temporary solutions, and to the sovereign actions intro-duced by the MSs. The CEAS itself was in crisis, which, as it was stated by many experts, was not able to manage its tasks fully even under quite peaceful circumstances, not to mention the time of the inflow of this extent of irregular migrants.
Speaking of crisis, it was found that the CEAS itself was in crisis and one of its core elements, the Dublin III Regulation because it was adopted to identify the MSs responsible for the asylum procedure and to facilitate the proceeding of the asylum applications. The regulation did not reckon with the possibility, that there might be MSs, lying mainly at the external border of the EU, which simply utilize the policy of go-through, and the carrying out of the procedures will place a burden on the MSs in the centre of the EU.
The situation is well characterised by a source close to the Committee, who said that
“the asylum acquis as a construction was like an airplane which was constructed for flying in good weather conditions and it should have been strengthened for bad weather, as well”.65 Presumably, this construction of airplane was unable to fly even in good weather. One of the reasons for the crisis was the lack of solidarity from the side of the MSs to each other, and the fact that the MSs use emergency solutions taking only their own interests into account (for instance pushing forward the irregular migrants into other MSs).
There are two possible ways for the EU to develop the CEAS. The first being, to en-hance the CEAS, which is a construction of regulations and directives, and it can strengthen the role of the authorities and institutions active in the area of asylum procedure ensuring them more rights. The second is to develop a new and common asylum procedure valid for the whole EU. The latter one does not seem too feasible.
65 Szacsúri (2015): op. cit. 6.