The following is a press release kindly provided to us by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium’s Center for European Studies. It was also signed by István Kiss and Kristóf György Veres from the Danube Institute.
It is the time for Member States to reclaim their sovereignty and decide for themselves which migration and asylum policies work for their own countries. It is time to take back control from Brussels, once and for all.
This report, Taking Back Control From Brussels: The Renationalization Of The Eu Migration And Asylum Policies, assesses whether the European Union’s involvement in migration and asylum policy still satisfies the principle of subsidiarity—namely, whether the EU is better placed than Member States to achieve key objectives such as border control, returns, readmission agreements, and asylum management. After three decades of a common EU framework, the conclusion is that this condition is no longer met.
Drawing on official data and legal analysis, the report argues that EU migration and asylum policy has failed to deliver effective control, credible enforcement, or successful integration outcomes. Persistently high migratory flows, weak return rates, and growing social and security pressures have turned migration into a central political issue across Europe. At the same time, an increasingly rigid legal and judicial framework limits Member States’ capacity to respond to these challenges.
The report questions the continued suitability of existing international and European legal instruments, developed for a different historical context, and highlights structural shortcomings in EU-level governance. It rejects further harmonization efforts as insufficient to address the underlying problems.
Produced by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium’s Center for European Studies and the Migration Research Institute, with the support of Ordo Iuris and the European Centre for Law and Justice, the report concludes that incremental reform has reached its limits and advances the case for a rebalancing of competences. Restoring primary responsibility for migration and asylum policy to Member States is necessary to enable effective, accountable, and context-sensitive responses to one of Europe’s most pressing challenges.
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