2016

July 2016

The future of the Dublin system and the options available for the European Union and its Member States at this juncture are one of the hottest political and legal issues at the moment. Daniel Thym presents his view of related ideas in an interview with the latest edition of the German weekly DER SPIEGEL.

28/29 April 2016

Union citizenship is under pressure, both politically and legally. A number of more recent ECJ judgments famously highlighted the limits of transnational solidarity and membership the legal rules on Union citizenship bring about. An international conference at the University of Konstanz analyses underlying reasons. Participation is free, but requires prior registration. For more information consult the website of the Research Centre Immigration and Asylum Law.

26 April 2016

The German government has reacted to the ‘refugee crisis’ with a collection of legislative initiatives reforming the German asylum system, thereby complementing ongoing initiatives at European and international level. One such measure concerns the expansion of the domestic list of ‘safe third countries’ to Algeria, Morocco and Tunesia on which the home affairs committee of the German Bundestag held a public hearing on 26 April 2016 in which Daniel Thym participated as an external…

April 2016

EU Directives and Regulations on immigration and asylum, including the case law of the ECJ, becomes ever more important for those working in ministries, immigration authorities, national courts, academia, non-governmental organisations and as practicing lawyers. They may benefit from the fundamentally revised and extended second version of the established commentary edited by Kay Hailbronner and Daniel Thym. It was jointly by C.H. Beck, Nomos and Hart in the spring of 2016, covers…

March 2016

The prospect of a ‘deal’ between the European Union and Turkey on refugees and migrants in the Eastern Mediterranean has received much political attention. NGOs were quick to castigate the EU-Turkey refugee deal for falling foul of the EU’s own legal standards and for being an anti-humanitarian solution. Daniel Thym presents a different perspective by highlighting the conceptual value of an agreement which can be compatible with European and international rules on safe third…

January 2016

German and Austrian asylum policy is gradually shifting away from pan-European solutions towards national solutions. In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Daniel Thym discusses the underlying policy dilemma. Notwithstanding the widespread failure of the Common European Asylum System, sustainable migration governance cannot be achieved by individual states alone. It is the dilemma of contemporary decision-making that it cannot abolish and re-establish transnational cooperation…

January 2016

The decision, by the Austrian government, to introduce numerical limits for accepting refugees may be incompatible with existing obligations under EU law and the Geneva Convention. Daniel Thym discusses corresponding limits in a (German) contribution for Legal Tribune Online and shows why implementing such rule may prove difficult. See also the interview in the ‘ZIB Magazin’ of the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF1.

January 2016

A growing number of politicians in Central Europe is calling for unilateral border closures, including the rejection of asylum seekers. In a (German) contribution to the Verfassungsblog and an (English) post for the Blog of the Odysseus Network, Daniel Thym discusses the options Member States have under EU law. The issue is also taken up in an article in the print edition of the weekly magazine DER SPIEGEL No. 4/2016.

January 2016

At the meeting of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Daniel Thym presents his views on the Draft Own Initiative Report on the situation in the Mediterranean.