Between Persecution and Protection: Refugees and the New European Asylum Policy
The admission, reception and treatment of asylum seekers in the European Union has been an issue of continuing political and legal concern throughout the 1990’s. The rising numbers of persons seeking protection at the beginning of the period coupled with a rapidly developing regional jurisprudence on the right to protection from the European Court of Human Rights in particular, changed the nature of the debate. The Member States began to search for common policies and practices as regards asylum through intergovernmental measures. With the Amsterdam Treaty, the most important aspects of asylum have been transferred to the EC Treaty: criteria and mechanisms for determining which Member State is responsible for considering an application for asylum; minimum standards on reception of asylum seekers; minimum standards with respect to the qualification of nationals of third countries as refugees; minimum standards on procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status amongst others.