Dublin is dead, long live Dublin. The rules on allocating responsibility for the asylum requests of people arriving in Europe have long been a bone ofcontention between EU Member States. Countries on the EU’s external borders feel disproportionally “burdened” by the arrival of people who seek asylum. Civil societyorganisations have long argued for a more equal distribution of responsibility too. Putting the majority of responsibility on a few countries has led to rushed and flawed procedures and poor reception conditions. This has threatened the prevalence of human rights, particularly, the right to seek asylum. However, when presented with a generational opportunity to improve the solidarity with Member States and people applying for asylum in camps on the external border,the EU fell short.

Previously, Fenix analysed how the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum will lead to situations of detention at the EU’s external border and fails to address the lack of safe routes. This third part of the series on the Pact unpacks how the new rules will affect the lives of those detained at the EU’s external borders. As in our earlier posts, we base our analysis on the testimonies of the clients Fenix meets every day through our work on Lesvos and in Athens.