The Common European Asylum System constitutes one of the principal areas in which the fundamental rights of individuals are essentially placed in competition with the core principle of mutual confidence and the need to preserve the effectiveness of EU law. That competitive relationship becomes particularly evident when applicants for international protection rely on alleged violations of their fundamental rights in order to contest their transfer to the Member State that is normally responsible for examining their asylum request according to the criteria of the Dublin III Regulation. The balancing process that needs to be carried out in this respect and the measure of the monitoring obligation that EU law imposes on the receiving Member State regarding the protection of the fundamental rights of asylum seekers are well exemplified by the preliminary ruling in Jawo. That case provides additional clarification regarding the circumstances in which the protection of fundamental rights may introduce exceptions to the principle of mutual trust. At the same time, it illustrates the inherent tensions that exist between the protection of fundamental rights and the application of the principle of mutual confidence.

The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) seeks to harmonize national asylum procedures. The initial implementation design of the CEAS, reflective of the theory of executive federalism, foresaw that national authorities were to conduct asylum processing and implement the harmonized norms. The implementation design of the EU asylum policy has, nevertheless, started to shift. An integrated European administration is emerging. One area this is pronounced in is asylum decision-making, where patterns of joint implementation have surfaced. This term broadly refers to staff and experts deployed by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), an EU agency, working alongside national administrators, including on the processing of asylum claims. This Article scrutinizes the emergence of joint implementation patterns in EU asylum policy and the resulting accountability challenge, drawing both from legal analysis and political science theories. I also refer to administrative practice as documented in secondary sources. EASO is currently subject to a mosaic of accountability processes. Two main pitfalls emerge: the intricate balance between accountability and independence; and accessibility for the individual. Against this backdrop, I focus on extra-judicial accountability through the European Ombudsman which, combined with the envisaged internal “individual complaints mechanism” within EASO, could go some way in ensuring applicants’ procedural rights.

Five years after the Dublin transfers of asylum seekers to Greece were halted—due to recurrent failings in the detention conditions, living conditions, and asylum procedure—the European Commission recommended a resumption of the practice. This Article analyzes the Recommendation in light of the human rights reports preceding and following it. The examination reveals that the renewal of systematic transfers would be premature, posing serious risks to the rights of asylum seekers under European and EU law. The restoration of a flawed system for distribution of asylum claims among the Member States—without fundamental reforms towards greater solidarity—may lead to a repetition of past mistakes. Despite the paramount importance of the Dublin system for the functioning of the Schengen Area, rule enforcement should not supersede human rights protection.