The EU and the refugee crisis.
Date: 2016-08-24
Institutions: Directorate-General for Communication
Subjects: EU Member State, EU migration policy, migration control, political asylum, refugee, right of asylum

THE EU AND

THE REFUGEE
CRISIS

In the last 2 years, Europe 
has experienced the greatest mass 
movement of people since the Second 
World War. More than 1 million refugees 
and migrants have arrived in the 
European Union, the large majority of 
them fleeing from war and terror in Syria 
and other troubled countries. The EU has 
agreed on a range of measures to deal 
with the crisis. These include trying to 
resolve the root causes of the crisis as 

well as greatly increasing aid to people 
in need of humanitarian assistance both 
inside and outside the EU. Steps are 
being taken to relocate asylum seekers 
already in the EU, resettle people in need 
from neighbouring countries and return 
people who don’t qualify for asylum. The 
EU is improving security at borders with 
a new border and coast guard, tackling 
people smuggling and offering safe ways 
for people to legally enter the EU.

July 2016  

WHAT IS THE REFUGEE CRISIS? 

Many vulnerable people are coming to the EU to seek 
asylum. This is a form of international protection that 
is given to people fleeing their home countries and who 
can’t return due to a well-founded fear of persecution. 
The EU has a legal and moral obligation to protect 
those in need. Member States are responsible for 
examining asylum applications and for deciding who 
will receive protection.

But not everyone coming to Europe needs protection. 
Many people leave their home country in an attempt to 
improve their lives. These people are often referred to 
as economic migrants, and if they are not successful 
in their asylum application then national governments 
have an obligation to remove them to their home 
country, or another safe country which they have 
passed through.

Thousands of people have died at sea attempting 
to reach the EU. Almost 90 % of the refugees and 
migrants have paid organised criminals and people 
smugglers to get them across borders. As a result, they 
are known as ‘irregular’ migrants — that is, they have 
not entered the EU through legal means.

Providing people with food, water and shelter is an 
enormous strain on the resources of some EU Member 
States. This is especially the case in Greece and Italy, 
where the vast majority of refugees and migrants 

first arrive in the EU. Many of these people eventually 
want to reach other EU countries such as Germany 
or Sweden. This has caused problems too in Member 
States which migrants have been passing through 
in order to get to their final destination, for example 
Croatia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. 

In a large part of the EU — the Schengen area — 
people are able to move freely without internal border 
controls, but the flow of refugees has caused some 
Member States to reinstate checks at their borders 
with other EU countries. Just as the arrival of migrants 
affects some Member States more than others, the 
number of asylum applications is not evenly spread 
among them. In 2015, 75 % of all asylum applications 
were registered in just five Member States (Germany, 
Hungary, Sweden, Austria and Italy).

The EU has recently reached an agreement with 
Turkey aimed at halting the uncontrolled flow of 
migrants across one of the major routes in the Aegean 
Sea. The agreement also provides legal ways for 
refugees to enter Europe. The numbers of refugees and 
migrants coming from Turkey have been significantly 
reduced as a result. From a peak of around 7 000 per 
day in October 2015, the average number arriving was 
brought down to 47 per day by the end of May 2016.

nNumber of refugees and migrants 
ncrossing the sea from Turkey to 
nGreece each day 

Source: DG Migration and Home Affairs.

WHAT IS THE EU 
DOING?

Providing humanitarian assistance and 
development aid

In total, the EU has dedicated over €10 billion from the 
EU budget to dealing with the refugee crisis in 2015 
and 2016. Many people arrive in the EU needing basics 
such as clean water, food and shelter. The EU is financing 
projects to address the most urgent humanitarian needs 
of the 50 000 refugees and migrants hosted in Greece as 
of May 2016.

The EU also provides humanitarian aid to refugees 
and migrants in countries outside the EU, such as 
Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Turkey hosts by far 
the biggest number of refugees — about 3 million in 
total, of whom 2.5 million are Syrian. In order to support 
refugees in Turkey, the EU and its Member States are 
providing €6 billion through a dedicated facility between 
2016 and 2018.

Saving lives at sea and protecting  
the EU’s borders

The EU has increased its capacity to carry out search 
and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and to tackle 
criminal networks. By tripling the available resources, it 
helped save over a quarter of a million lives in 2015.

The EU Member States agreed in June 2016 to establish 
a new European Border and Coast Guard to reinforce the 
management and security of the EU’s common external 
borders.

The European Police Office has opened a new European 
Migrant Smuggling Centre to support EU Member States 
in dismantling criminal networks involved in organised 
migrant smuggling.

http://europa.eu/!bC64tY

nFive EU Member States received three 
nquarters of asylum applications in 2015n

Source: Eurostat.

Relocation, resettlement and return  

Based on a European Commission proposal, Member 
States have agreed for the first time to relocate 160 000 
asylum seekers from Greece and Italy to other EU 
countries by September 2017. However, as of July 2016, 
only 3 000 asylum seekers have been relocated. National 
governments need to step up the pace of this scheme to 
help those in need of protection.

The EU also wants to create safe and legal ways for 
asylum seekers to enter the EU so that they don’t have 
to risk their lives and life savings by turning to smugglers 
and traffickers. A voluntary resettlement programme 
agreed by the EU Member States envisages the transfer 
of 22 500 people from outside the EU to an EU Member 
State.

The EU has increased the rate of returns of irregular 
migrants with no right to stay in the EU to their home 
country. Member States have agreed to apply the rules on 
return more actively, and the EU border agency will assist 
them by coordinating return flights.

Agreement with Turkey  

The EU and Turkey agreed in March 2016 that irregular 
migrants and asylum seekers arriving on the Greek 
islands from Turkey may be returned to Turkey. For every 
Syrian returned to Turkey from the Greek islands after an 
irregular crossing, the EU will take in a Syrian from Turkey 
who has not sought to make this journey in an irregular 
way. Return operations have started from the Greek 
islands to Turkey, in parallel with resettlement flights 
directly from Turkey to the EU Member States.

 Evolution in the number  
 of first-time asylum applications  
 in the EU  

Note: The 1998-2015 
figures are annual.  
The 2016 figures are 
monthly. 

Source: Eurostat.

Stopping irregular uncontrolled   
migration 

The EU has set up reception centres in Greece and Italy 
to help the authorities in these countries to manage the 
migration flows. It has also sent experts to help register 
people arriving and to coordinate the return of some 
migrants to their country of origin.

The EU will also look for partnerships with countries 
that refugees and migrants come from in order to save 
lives, increase returns, enable migrants and refugees 
to stay closer to home and, in the long term, help the 
development of those countries in order to address the 
root causes of irregular migration. The EU proposes to 
devote €8 billion to this programme in the period up to 
2021.

Reforming EU rules on asylum  

Although the EU started to develop a common asylum 
policy in 1999, the rules were never designed to cope 
with a massive number of people arriving in a short space 
of time. New proposals are now on the table from the 
Commission to revise the existing laws in line with current 
and future needs. The basic principle will remain the same 
— people should apply for asylum in the first EU Member 
State they enter unless they have family elsewhere — but 
whenever a Member State is overwhelmed, there must be 
solidarity and a fair sharing of responsibility within the EU.

nAn interactive version of this publication, containing links to online content, is available in PDF and HTML formatnn
nhttp://publications.europa.eu/webpub/com/factsheets/refugee-crisis/en 

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