CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Matt, Paulina |
|---|---|
| Title | 'Failing' Forward in the Context of European Integration: The Common European Asylum System |
| Summary | Although the EU has been working on developing a functioning Common European Asylum System (CEAS) for more than 20 years, the CEAS is still dysfunctional, which became particularly clear during the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’. This thesis aims to understand why the CEAS remains incomplete and how the EU continuously fails to establish a functioning system. It also explores the impact of the failure of the CEAS on European integration. This thesis employs the ‘failing forward’ theory which claims that the EU itself created the conditions for crises to emerge by driving integration through incomplete agreements based on the lowest common denominator bargaining between Member States, thereby triggering spillover effects. Drawing on content analysis and secondary literature, this thesis finds that 1) intergovernmental bargaining has made the CEAS incomplete because of Member States’ unwillingness to settle beyond the lowest common denominator agreements. This incompleteness became particularly evident during the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ when the CEAS’s main element, the Dublin Regulation, completely failed; 2) although the EU acknowledged the inadequacies of the CEAS and proposed a reform, namely the New Pact, Member States responded by again agreeing on the lowest common denominator solutions, leaving the system in place incomplete; 3) the failure of the CEAS has generated functional spillovers, including the strengthening of FRONTEX and the rise of populist radical right-wing (PRR) parties. Contrary to the theory, however, this thesis argues that these two functional spillovers have not deepened European integration but indeed challenged it, and 4) a ‘failing’ cycle can be found in the CEAS. |
| Supervisor | Stachowitsch, Saskia |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/matt_paulina.pdf |
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