Why the jury is out on the Commission’s latest proposal for a ‘distribution key’ to help solve the refugee crisis

The European Commission is expected to announce new proposals in the coming months which will aim to reform the so called ‘Dublin regulation’ that assigns responsibility over asylum applications to EU member states. According to a recent statement by the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the new proposal will be based on a ‘distribution key’ system, which will semi-automatically assign applications to individual states. Nando Sigona argues that given the slow implementation of previous agreements, notably the relocation scheme for asylum seekers agreed in September 2015, there are reasons to doubt whether such a proposal would have the capacity to help solve the current crisis.