Registration starts at 11:45 with lunch. The event waill be livestreamed here and on YouTube.

 The EU’s asylum system often faces criticism for being dysfunctional and for putting an undue burden on frontline member states. What is less frequently discussed, however, is whether this system is, in fact, providing protection to those people who deserve it most. Similarly, the security aspects of asylum are rarely put under the microscope. This is despite the fact that some perpetrators of terrorist attacks on European soil have entered the EU disguised as asylum seekers and that countries such as Germany, that have generously accepted millions of people, are now struggling with refugee criminality and the insufficient integration of certain immigrant groups into their labour markets. 

But how could the asylum system be reformed? Why are Ukrainian refugees treated differently? Do Canadian and Australian asylum systems, for example, provide better practices for which the EU could consider? To discuss these questions, the Martens Centre is organising a discussion with the aim of taking stock and presenting potential areas in which the EU asylum system could be reformed.