Responsibility-sharing and fairness in EU asylum policy: What can be expected from the EU’s new migration Pact?

This presentation examines the issue of responsibility-sharing and fairness in EU asylum policy. It looks back at member states’ cooperation under the Dublin system in order to draw lessons for the current exercise of implementing the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum. The input is based on a comprehensive dataset of around 260,000 Dublin transfers between 2008 and 2024, analysing how they impacted the member states’ distribution of responsibilities for asylum applications. As the new Pact introduces a new solidarity mechanism for the field, a key question arises: What can past patterns of cooperation tell us about the likely effectiveness of this new system that will enter into force in mid-2026?