The supranationalization of the operational support to the national asylum systems in the European Union

Abstract

The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) is a decentralized EU agency that shapes the institutional framework of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and provides special and emergency assistance to the national asylum systems. The so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015 stressed the need to safeguard the functioning of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), to operationally assist the Member States most affected by the sudden and extraordinary arrival of mixed migratory flows and, to effectively and uniformly implement the EU asylum measures. This article studies the evolution of the operational tasks of the Agency, both de iure and de facto, from its establishment to its proposed transformation into an EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) with powers of intervention, supervision and examination of applications of international protection. Moreover, the article examines, in particular, the control exercised by the Member States and the civil society with the aim of balancing the reinforced operational mandate of the Agency, overseeing the potential impact of the Agency’s activities on the fundamental rights of the asylum seekers and, limiting the Agency’s discretion in the examination of applications of international protection. Hence, two trends in the administration of asylum in the EU can be highlighted after the analysis conducted in this article. On the one hand, while the EUAA’s new legal framework indicates that its operational mandate is limited, like EASO’s, to providing the national authorities with the assistance they may require, the tasks that EASO conducts in practice on the ground and the activities envisaged for the EUAA are clearly operational. On the other, the Agency has an increasingly leading role in ensuring the effective and uniform implementation of the asylum measures adopted at the EU level, as well as ensuring that the Member States do not jeopardize the functioning of the CEAS.