The Refugees' Integration between European Guarantees and Domestic Policies

Abstract 
 
 The study aims to give contribution for the new phase of the Common 
European Asylum System (CEAS).  
Hence, we suggest paying more attention in finding a suitable solution for refugees 
within the EU (European Union) territory, in particular thanks to the local 
integration and the naturalisation process within Member States. 
In addition, the research helps EU national and local authorities to engage 
themselves in a successful process on integration of refugees.  
 
 The analysis focuses upon recognized refugees lawfully staying in the EU 
territory. The group includes refugees under the 1951 Geneva Convention and 
persons with the subsidiary protection status. 
We do not include asylum seekers and beneficiaries of other forms of protection 
(e.g. beneficiaries of temporary protection) because additional provisions are 
necessary for them.  
 
 The problem statement relies on a poor EU legislative guarantee and an 
ineffective EU political evolution on the integration procedure of refugees within 
Member States.   
As a result, domestic policies on refugee integration have few points in common 
and national authorities miss in having common guidelines for the implementation 
of a comprehensive strategy in favour of a durable solution for refugees in the new 
local community. 
 
 In order to comply with these objectives, a multi method research strategy 
was built.  
It is both based on a legislative and juridical evaluation (in part I) and a social 
investigation (in part II). 
 
Data were collected from multiple sources.
The first part of the study relies on an accurate research which considers both the 
international and EU level of protection in different fields: refugees’ protection, 
TCNs’ integration and human rights’ protection. 
Here, a conceptual framework was created.  
From this, it was possible select a set of indicators considered important for the 
local integration of refugees, independently from which EU country the refugee 
wishes to establish.  
 
Thanks to the indicators, the study collected a number of national and local best 
practises suitable to be transferred in other Member States.   
In order to facilitate the implementation of the domestic policy of refugee 
integration, the research is divided in “integration dimensions”.  
The inductive procedure permits finally to create a system-conceptual-ideal model. 
 
Keywords 
 
Common European Asylum System, recognized refugees, fundamental human 
rights, local integration, naturalization, best practices
1 
 
PART I. 
THE EUROPEAN UNION PROTECTING REGIME 
 
Introduction 
 
The creation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) arises from the 
idea of making of the EU a system of protection for refugees, based on the application 
of the Geneva Convention
1
 and on the international humanitarian values common to all 
Member States.  
 
Since the Amsterdam Treaty
2
, signed in 1997 and entered into force in 1999, the 
“communitarization process” started. Later on, in response to the experience of the 
Kosovo refugee crisis
3
, the establishment of the CEAS became a priority in the EU.  
This instrument constituted the major point of departure to get away from the former 
transgovernmental mode of co-operation in asylum matters by using national 
constitutions and international human rights law.  
 
Part I provides a critical legal review concerning the modality of EU protection 
and integration addressed to people recognized as refugees.  
Hence, the study is developed around a multilevel interaction of relevant documents: 
international and EU asylum law, legislation concerning the integration of 
third ‐ country nationals (TCNs), supranational and regional instruments (treaties, 
conventions or recommendations) for the safeguard of fundamental human rights along 
with other mainstream open methods and programs.  
As a result, the study moves towards the creation of a more pragmatic refugee legal 
status by assembling pieces of different domains.  
Mainly, in order to create a complete overview for the EU refugee legal status is 
required work with a bi-dimensional methodology mainly mingling together the TCNs 
integration policy with the asylum one and on the other hand, with a multi-level 
                                                             
1
 UN General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 
2
 EU, Treaty of Amsterdam, 1997  
3
 The Kosovo war was an armed conflict lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999 concerning the 
status of Kosovo, an autonomous province of Serbia. Because of the conflict and ethnic cleansings, 
minorities from these territories (Albanians and later Serbs) were forced to flee. In that years, a mass 
refugee exodus from Kosovo interested Europe.
2 
 
methodology taking in consideration international law and programs as indispensable 
legal tool for the EU.
3 
 
Chapter 1 
A Multilevel Protecting Regime for the European Union 
 
“The European Union (EU) has committed itself to building a Common European Asylum 
System based on the full and inclusive application of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, for 
which UNHCR has a supervisory responsibility. The EU has a central role with respect to 
asylum and resettlement issues inside and outside the Union, and EU law and practice has 
considerable influence on the development of refugee protection mechanisms in other 
countries.”
4
 
 
Asylum is a fundamental right recognized first in the 1951 Geneva Convention 
on the protection of refugees.  
The Convention was the result of the EU aptitude to provide a remedy for thousands of 
people displaced by the war in their territory. Without doubt, the existence of a specific 
international instrument for the protection of refugees explained the silence kept in 
those years from the EU institutions.  
Here, neither the Council of Europe (CoE), which status focused on human rights, the 
rule of law and democracy, nor the European Convention of human right (ECHR) as the 
fundamental instrument of protection of human rights in the EU, evoked the protection 
of refugees.  
 
Subsequently, since the EU treaties had a purely economic vocation, the CoE started to 
be more concerned in the asylum matter and the international instruments – as the 
Geneva Convention – were considered not sufficient anymore.  
The CoE Parliamentary Assembly increased its recommendations in favor of the asylum 
right and on the other side, the Committee of Ministers adopted several resolutions and 
declarations.  
In addition, the latter created a specific structure – the so-called Hoc Committee of 
Experts on the Legal Aspects of Territorial Asylum, Refugees and Stateless Persons 
(CAHAR)
5
 – that played a key role in inspiring the EU in the elaboration of the CEAS.  
These documents, although devoid of legal force, testified a constant political desire of 
the CoE to establish a high standard for the refugees’ protection through national 
solidarity – beyond the one offered by the Geneva Convention.  
                                                             
4
 For further information: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4dd12ad46.html    
5
 The CAHAR’s members are designed by national governments of the CoE. It deals with issues relating 
to asylum seekers, de facto refugees – with the exception of issues concerning the legal immigrants and 
refugees that are charged of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons.
4 
 
As far as the Assembly wished that Member States granted a residence permit to every 
de facto refugee who are unable or unwilling for political, racial, religious or other 
valid reasons to return to their countries of origin.
6
  
Anyhow, these attempts – as the proposition to adopt a European convention on 
territorial asylum
7
 – did not become formal commitments.  
Faced with the flow of asylum seekers at the end of the 1980, the CoE multiplied its 
recommendations in particular relating to the living and working conditions
8
 pointing 
out the principles of greater solidarity, political freedom and human rights.
9
  
 
If the CoE first worked in the asylum law, the EU started only at the end of the 
90s.  
The EU focused on asylum-seekers application rather than the refugee protection and 
integration mechanisms.  
Hence, recognized refugees were confused with normal immigrants and the EU hardly 
recognized them as person in need of constant protection and social-economic aid.  
This gap still remains nowadays and it is translated into a poor and uncompleted EU 
legislation, a confused EU policy and an occult jurisprudence.  
 
Far from creating a unifying refugee protection law, the Geneva Convention continues 
to hold an important role for the integration of refugees in the EU – as we will see many 
references have been made during the drafting of the EU Asylum law.  
In such a context, Cecilia Malmström (the European Commissioner for Home Affairs) 
recalls:  
“For four of the six decades that the Refugee Convention has been in place, the main 
beneficiaries of refugee protection were Europeans themselves, many of them now EU 
citizens.”
10
 
 
In this regard, with new crises emerging and old ones unresolved around the world, the 
EU should make all the possible efforts in order to protect and find solutions for the 
displaced and persecuted as the international law requires. 
                                                             
6
 CoE, Recommendation 773, 1976  
7
 CoE, Recommendation on the 21st report on the activities of the Office of the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Refugees, 1978 
8
 CoE, Recommendation 1016,1985  
9
 CoE, Recommendation 1088, 1988 
10
 Malmström C., Guterres A., 60 Years of the Geneva Refugee Convention: Europe must uphold its 
values, 2011