Objectives
News 
A proposal to reform EU asylum policy
Mariana Andrei - Communication Coordinator
20 February 2015
The article „Tradable Refugee-admission Quotas: A Policy Proposal to Reform the EU Asylum policy”, written by Hillel Rapoport and published on the Migration Policy Centre (MPG) blog in January this year, refers to the pressure put by the recent refugee flows upon the European asylum institutions and policies. The author, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, highlights both the much criticized weaknesses and inefficiencies and the opportunity given by the current crisis to rethink the EU asylum policy.
The author's proposal for asylum policy reform is based on the economic model of markets for tradable quotas and on the "matching" mechanism and was put forward in a working paper prepared in 2014 together with Fernandez-Huertas Moraga. The “tradable refugee-admission quotas system with matching” was designed in four steps; the first one is documenting the need to reform EU asylum policies and to highlight the key principles underlying these policies (effective refugee protection and fair responsibility sharing among states). According to the fair sharing principle, says Rapoport, more than 1/3 of EU asylum seekers should be transferred to other member states.
The second step is to detail the two components of the model: the tradable quota system and the matching mechanism. The system consists of determining the total number of asylum seekers/refugees to be hosted by the EU and their distribution across member states. The distribution of refugees could be done according to population, GDP, or according to a “combined capacity index”, which is more complicated to implement. The advantage of the tradable quota system is that it can provide information on the real costs associated with accommodating refugees in a state (international protection) and it can contribute to making the decision to host refugees or to finance UNHCR. The advantage of the system is that it allows allocating the number of refugees according to admission quotas, so that the marginal cost of hosting them is equalized across destination countries. The matching mechanism has two aspects: the asylum seeker/refugee's ranked preference for a certain country (in the case of relocation) and the destination (asylum) state's preference for certain categories of refugees (qualified/educated, with no family obligations/ dependant, work-capable, of certain nationalities etc.) This is done by “bidding” for certain types as part of the country’s quota. If all countries have the same preferences, the result will be equivalent to a case where they are indifferent with respect to refugee type. If countries have diverging preferences, then these different choices will reduce the expected cost of the system.
Overall, the combination of these two elements – the tradable quotas system and the matching mechanism – in a policy tool has certain theoretical advantages: cost-efficiency, incentive compatibility and fairness in cost-sharing and in refugees’ allocation. But how applicable would it be in the real world? To try to assess this, the author mentions the instrument proposed through EUREMA (European Relocation from Malta) Program, which allowed for the relocation of about 500 refugees and asylum seekers in 15 participating countries, in 2011-2012.
The selection was made in two steps: candidates were first registered by UNHCR, and then by the selection missions of participating countries. The evaluation done by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in 2012 showed that the preferences of participating states had priority in the selection process, with the refugees' preferences being neglected. This entailed delays and inefficiency. Second, the report listed a series of problems related to the identification of candidate refugees interested in relocation; lack of overlap between the participating States’ selection criteria and refugee profiles; unclear criteria for family reunification; and lack of will by some refugees to chose relocation offers by new EU Member States where there are few migrant communities.
The author believes that a tradable quotas system combined with a matching mechanism would address the problems indicated by the EASO report.
Source:
http://blogs.eui.eu/migrationpolicycentre/tradable-refugee-admission-quotas-a-policy-proposal-to-reform-the-eu-asylum-policy/
The author's proposal for asylum policy reform is based on the economic model of markets for tradable quotas and on the "matching" mechanism and was put forward in a working paper prepared in 2014 together with Fernandez-Huertas Moraga. The “tradable refugee-admission quotas system with matching” was designed in four steps; the first one is documenting the need to reform EU asylum policies and to highlight the key principles underlying these policies (effective refugee protection and fair responsibility sharing among states). According to the fair sharing principle, says Rapoport, more than 1/3 of EU asylum seekers should be transferred to other member states.
The second step is to detail the two components of the model: the tradable quota system and the matching mechanism. The system consists of determining the total number of asylum seekers/refugees to be hosted by the EU and their distribution across member states. The distribution of refugees could be done according to population, GDP, or according to a “combined capacity index”, which is more complicated to implement. The advantage of the tradable quota system is that it can provide information on the real costs associated with accommodating refugees in a state (international protection) and it can contribute to making the decision to host refugees or to finance UNHCR. The advantage of the system is that it allows allocating the number of refugees according to admission quotas, so that the marginal cost of hosting them is equalized across destination countries. The matching mechanism has two aspects: the asylum seeker/refugee's ranked preference for a certain country (in the case of relocation) and the destination (asylum) state's preference for certain categories of refugees (qualified/educated, with no family obligations/ dependant, work-capable, of certain nationalities etc.) This is done by “bidding” for certain types as part of the country’s quota. If all countries have the same preferences, the result will be equivalent to a case where they are indifferent with respect to refugee type. If countries have diverging preferences, then these different choices will reduce the expected cost of the system.
Overall, the combination of these two elements – the tradable quotas system and the matching mechanism – in a policy tool has certain theoretical advantages: cost-efficiency, incentive compatibility and fairness in cost-sharing and in refugees’ allocation. But how applicable would it be in the real world? To try to assess this, the author mentions the instrument proposed through EUREMA (European Relocation from Malta) Program, which allowed for the relocation of about 500 refugees and asylum seekers in 15 participating countries, in 2011-2012.
The selection was made in two steps: candidates were first registered by UNHCR, and then by the selection missions of participating countries. The evaluation done by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in 2012 showed that the preferences of participating states had priority in the selection process, with the refugees' preferences being neglected. This entailed delays and inefficiency. Second, the report listed a series of problems related to the identification of candidate refugees interested in relocation; lack of overlap between the participating States’ selection criteria and refugee profiles; unclear criteria for family reunification; and lack of will by some refugees to chose relocation offers by new EU Member States where there are few migrant communities.
The author believes that a tradable quotas system combined with a matching mechanism would address the problems indicated by the EASO report.
Source:
http://blogs.eui.eu/migrationpolicycentre/tradable-refugee-admission-quotas-a-policy-proposal-to-reform-the-eu-asylum-policy/
Back