‘Wrong number?’ The Use and Misuse of Asylum Data in the European Union. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security in Europe No. 69/December 2014

The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is an EU policy area that is particularly evocative of the ‘politics of numbers’. The European Union has at its disposal a wide array of sources providing detailed information about the capacities and pressures of its member states’ asylum systems. This paper discusses the content of asylum data and the evolving interaction between its different sources, ranging from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the European Commission’s EUROSTAT and DG HOME, the European Asylum Support Office, FRONTEX, the European Migration Network (EMN) and national databases. However, the way in which such data are often misused, or even omitted, in political debate affects the soundness of policy decisions in the CEAS. Drawing on debates over the contested phenomenon of ‘asylum shopping’ and the exemption of victims of torture and unaccompanied minors from accelerated and border procedures in the recast asylum procedures Directive, this briefing paper argues that solid data-based evidence is often absent from political negotiations on CEAS measures affecting refugees and asylum-seekers.

The Emergence of a Network of ‘European Embassies’: Increasing Cooperation between EU Delegations and Member State Diplomatic Missions. EU Diplomacy Paper No. 10, December 2014

Five years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and at the end of the first mandate of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP), this analysis provides an in-depth view of the on-going institutional socialisation between Member State Embassies and EU Delegations. Specifically, it focuses on the Member States’ perceptions of the role of EU Delegations. These perceptions can back up or restrain the EU Delegations in fulfilling their mandate. More precisely, the paper examines to what extent the socialisation between EU Delegations and EU Member State Embassies helps the Delegations to fulfil their mandate in bilateral diplomacy. It argues that EU Delegations are still under dynamic processes of institutional socialisation with the Member States’ Embassies which increasingly accept and expect EU Delegations’ actions. The post-Lisbon context of EU Diplomacy is consolidating a primus inter pares role of Delegations being central hubs coordinating and implementing EU policies on the spot.