The EU’s ‘Asylum Crisis’: A Case of ‘Integration without Supranationalisation’?

The current EU’s ‘asylum crisis’ could be seen as an example of ‘integration without supranationalisation’. The failure of the Dublin regime has led the European Council to go beyond its agenda-setting role to become the main policy-making institution. The failed agreement on relocation quotas or the EU-Turkey Statement show clear attempts to bypass supranational institutions during the heyday of the crisis. However, European Council decisions are often imperfect deals that need implementation and carry effects for day-to-day EU policy-making. Post-Lisbon, this implementation occurs mainly through the ordinary legislative procedure. With the use of document analysis and elite interviews, this article focuses on the reform of the Common European Asylum System and, in particular, those directives (Procedures and Qualifications) that have been upgraded to regulations and where we would expect the European Parliament to have a bigger say over policy outputs. The article uses constructivist institutionalism to argue that, by appealing to a ‘crisis situation’, member states have sequestered the policy-making competences of the European Parliament and restricted its capacity to influence the policy-making process.