Corrective Allocation Mechanism in the Dublin IV Regulation Proposal – Fair Distribution of Responsibility?

The main purpose of this paper is to point out briefly the deficiencies of sharing responsibility system proposed by the Commission recasting the Dublin system. The Dublin system is about to change for the fourth time. Currently Dublin system is third generation (after the previous Dublin Convention and Dublin I Regulation, the latter being repealed by the present Regulation), is considered to be the cornerstone of the EU's Common European Asylum System. All three previous versions were not able to establish effective and clear guidelines on determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection. It’s important to notice Dublin system in its principles, such as its overall emphasis on family reunification, prevention of asylum-shopping or of the so-called "orbit cases", in which there is no Member State which takes responsibility for refugees or asylum-seekers, are to be regarded as essential aspects of asylum system. The current Dublin system should be replaced with a regime that respects the fundamental rights of asylum seekers and is based on the fair sharing of responsibilities between Member States. The proposal of Dublin IV doesn’t seem to be solution to the issue of asylum seekers fair allocation between Member States. The most important change is the corrective mechanism - a way to allocate asylum seekers across Member States’ respective burden and capacity. Regulation Dublin IV understands burden as yearly arrivals. The mechanism only takes into account of the applications lodged in a given year and not of the total number of applications in course of evaluation in one country. So, capacity refers to a member state’s share of GDP and population out of the total EU GDP and population. The corrective mechanism would change the allocation of asylum seekers if would be in force during so - called “ refugee crisis”. The reform of the Dublin system, however, reproduces the EU’s segmented approach to migration as it limits its application to asylum seekers. As some scholars shown that relocating migrants that do not claim asylum makes no sense. It remains though, that incoming flows are mixed and that member states at the EU’s gates will continue to receive disproportionate numbers of people crossing their borders whilst only part of them are likely to be granted on of form of international protection. As pointed by ECRE, this corrective and complementary design contradicts the precepts of interstate solidarity in Article 80 TFEU, lessons learnt from the effects of Dublin in practice, but also positions taken by the European Parliament and Member States within the Council or other. As said by scholars, under new Dublin system, the most heavily burden countries still remain Greece and Italy.