Refugees in the European Union: from emergency alarmism to common management

The refugee's flows have alighted the European political debate boosting nationalistic forces in almost all countries. The aim of this paper is to show that the actual number of asylum seekers does not really allow to talk about a "refugee crises". It argues, however, that the current European Union institutions and procedures are highly insufficient to manage successfully refugee's inflows and asylum requests. A European foreign policy could have helped to prevent refugees' inflows from war-thorn areas such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Libya and Syria. Once the problem is there, the procedures centred on the Dublin Convention are inadequate and the paper provides a few radical suggestions that are made for an EU- centred refugees and asylum seekers management and policy.