European Union Justice and Home Affairs Council majority vote to relocate 120,000 refugees from Greece and Italy to other EU countries according to proportional quotas, in September 2015. National government positions.Green/yes;Orange/opt-out;Blue/abstention;Red/no;Grey/non-EU state. Wikicommons/Nameless23. Some rights reserved.The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) is the key actor in the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and we are committed to translating into practice the core values of the CEAS – equity and fairness – and to ensuring that all Member States deal with individual asylum cases in a coherent way. To do this we provide various kinds of support to their asylum and reception systems, in order to foster a common understanding of asylum practices and increased convergence of assessment criteria across the EU. Since 2015, EASO has a new and stronger focus on its operations as part of the EU response to current migration challenges, working in the field to make the principle of solidarity and shared responsibility a reality throughout the EU.
In other words, we are a centre of expertise on asylum with real operational capabilities.
Undeniably, the current migration crisis has shown very clearly that we need a more operational agency, one which is able to rely more on its own resources, that is stronger and better-equipped. This is why EASO is set to become a fully-fledged Agency for Asylum (EUAA), able to play a better role, not only in managing but also in preventing disproportionate pressure from being placed on MS asylum systems. The new mandate will allow us to identify and address in a better, more timely fashion, any shortcomings in national asylum and reception systems, so that we might prevent the kind of crisis we are living through today from arising in the future.
