The EU legal regime on migration and asylum. Faced with migrations by sea

The article examines EU regime on asylum and migration, in particular through the analysis of the recent developments in EU law (including bilateral agreement with third countries) to face the migration emergency of the recent past, in particular by sea. Notwithstanding the improvements that have been achieved through the ECJ case-law, criticism is expressed to the present Dublin regime and its inability to accomplish the legal foundations of EU law on migrations and asylum. More recent measures such as financial solidarity and ‘tentative’ relocations schemes are also evaluated, together with the bilateral agreement recently concluded with Turkey. These legal instruments are further confronted with EU principles and with ECJ relevant judgments, both in the light of the applicable regime on migrants and refugees stemming from international law and from the ECHR specific case law on migrations by sea. In the author’s view, EU primary law and the principles of solidarity, burden sharing and sincere co-operation, mandate a radical change of the present ‘Dublin format’. They further exclude the legality of opting-out solutions unilaterally carried out by ‘second-line’ Member States to oppose (EU) handling of migratory flows and relocation of asylum-seekers