V. The Dublin System and the Failure of International Burden Sharing At the Tampere European Council in 1999, the EU committed itself to establishing a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) that would harmonize refugee standards and asylum procedures throughout the EU. Nearly 10 years later, despite multiple EC asylum directives, the reality is that wide disparities exist throughout the EU in the treatment of asylum seekers. Far from a harmonized system, the EU is faced with a situation where Sweden would have a 91 percent approval rate for Iraqi refugees in the same year (2006) that Greece had an Iraqi asylum approval rate of zero. Clearly the EU asylum system is not harmonized. Nor is the refugee burden being shared equitably when those same two countries—Sweden and Greece—host three-fifths of all Iraqi asylum seekers in the EU. Ostensibly to prevent “asylum shopping” and “refugees in orbit,” the Dublin II regulation15 sets out which member state is responsible for examining an asylum claim. It normally will be the country of first arrival and applies to all EU member states, as well as Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland.16 Based on the assumption that all participating states have the same standards and procedures for determining refugee status, the Dublin system highlights how much lower Greece’s asylum standards and procedures are in comparison to other European states. Among its flaws, the Dublin system ignores the legitimate interest asylum seekers have in choosing where to apply for asylum and unfairly allocates the burden of processing asylum claims to the states on the EU’s external frontiers. Because of the dual failure of the Dublin system, two European countries, Sweden (because of its relative generosity) and Greece (because of its geographical location), have shouldered a disproportionate share of the Iraqi refugee burden—62 percent of all 15 It is known as “Dublin II” because the 2003 regulation replaces the previous Convention determining the State responsible for examining applications for asylum lodged in one of the Member States of the European Communities of 15 June 1990 – Dublin Convention; OJ, C 254, August 19, 1997. 16 Exceptions to the country of first arrival include asylum seekers who can establish that they have qualifying family members in another member state or in cases where another member state has issued a visa or resident permit. Qualifying members are narrowly drawn, however, and exclude siblings, parents of adult children, and spouses in common law marriages in Member States that do not recognize such marriages. Stuck in a Revolving Door 22