Towards a fairer EU asylum policy: Lessons from the Dublin system for the EU’s Solidarity Mechanism

On 11 November 2025, the European Commission released its first European Annual Asylum and Migration Report as part of the new policy cycle introduced by the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum. The Commission examined the asylum, migration and reception situation across the EU and found that four member states are under ‘migratory pressure’, and 14 others either ‘at risk’ or facing a ‘significant migration situation’.

This Discussion Paper examines how member states have cooperated under the Dublin system to draw lessons for the implementation of the New Pact, including the functioning of the solidarity mechanism. It highlights the persistent disparity between requested and actual Dublin transfers, showing how this raises doubts about future compliance with the reformed CEAS. At the same time, the results presented in this Paper hold important lessons for the future functioning of the reformed rules, pointing to the need to strengthen the redistributive effects of all transfers of responsibility and the benefits for compliance and trust that would derive from this. The forthcoming solidarity contributions should therefore be guided by a fairness principle, focusing on how to distribute asylum seekers more fairly among member states overall under the CEAS.*

The Paper begins by examining the approximately 260,000 executed Dublin transfers that took place between 2008 and 2024, establishing whether and which states have processed a number of asylum applications that could be considered as ‘fair’ based on their size and wealth. The data1 shows that Dublin transfers mostly had positive redistributive effects, outweighing ‘unfair’ transfers by a factor of roughly 2.5 to 1 and improving rather than undermining the overall fairness of the EU asylum system. This is a rather surprising finding given the system’s reputation for placing responsibility for asylum seekers disproportionately on only a few member states. However, the Paper also emphasises that this fairness has to be understood within a partially implemented system where EU-wide allocation remained limited and most transfers did not change the asymmetry between member states. Results also varied across time and countries.

The Pact reforms, which will become fully applicable as of mid-2026, retain the ‘first country of entry’ principle to establish responsibility over asylum seekers as well as transfers. Yet the new rules will also tighten compliance, among others aiming to reduce the gap between requested and executed transfers. This gap has increased in recent years, threatening mutual trust between member states and putting the CEAS at risk before the new rules even enter into application.

One of the Pact’s major innovations is the mechanism for mandatory but flexible solidarity, which foresees the possibility for member states to receive financial contributions and operational support alongside relocations. However, member states that face persistent secondary movements may be reluctant to come forward with solidarity pledges, particularly relocations, if there is no guarantee that border states will comply with their obligations. In parallel, border states may continue to flout their obligations if they fear a disproportionate burden that the solidarity mechanism fails to correct. Transfers of responsibility can take multiple forms under the reformed CEAS, including Dublin transfers, relocations or ‘responsibility offsets’. The latter is another innovation introduced by the Pact that allows member states to take responsibility for asylum applicants on their own territory, similar to the (unilateral) sovereignty clause under the Dublin III Regulation. Yet what may be overlooked is the risk that such transfers will benefit some member states at the expense of others, instead of improving the overall fairness of the EU asylum system. This is because the reform expands the range of responsibility transfers invoked in the name of solidarity but lacks an overarching fairness principle.

Looking ahead, this gap could be transformed into a strength of the new system, improving implementation and mutual trust within the reformed CEAS by focusing on the redistributive outcome of all responsibility transfers. To achieve this, clear principles and transparent assessments will be needed. To this end, this Discussion Paper recommends to:

- increase overall transparency in the assessment of transfers, using the principle of fairness as part of the assessment;

- improve the assessment of which countries are under pressure, or are at risk thereof, by considering the distributive impact of all transfers that shift responsibility over asylum seekers, including relocations;

- ensure that responsibility transfers enhance the overall fairness of the reformed CEAS by prioritising movements from more pressured to less pressured states.

Embedding these principles in the implementation of the new rules would make the reformed CEAS fairer, more effective and more resilient. It would strengthen mutual trust between member states and open opportunities for further improvements, including practices that secure asylum seekers’ acceptance and thus benefit all stakeholders.

Read the full paper here.

Florian Trauner is a professor of political science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and is acting as the dean of the VUB’s Brussels School of Governance.

Philipp Stutz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

Philipp Lutz is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Ambizione Fellow at the University of Geneva (Switzerland).

Florian Trauner and Philipp Stutz gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) for the ERC Follow-up project ‘The creation of a dataset on coercive EU mobility rules’ (FWOEUMOB; G0G2821N).

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