Turkey's Asylum Policy in the Light of EU Accession - The Impact of its Geographical Limitation to the Geneva Convention

The reader of this thesis will gain an enhanced understanding of the complexity of the EU-Turkey relations on asylum. Turkey has ratified the Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees with a geographical limitation. This limits the country to only grant refugee status to European asylum seekers and non-European asylum seekers are resettled in third countries. According to the European Commission, this causes the Turkish asylum system to be ineffective and Turkey has been requested to lift the geographical limitation as part of its EU accession process. From a rational Europeanization perspective the thesis explores some of the reforms Turkey is undertaking to its asylum system. The theoretical approach argues that positive membership conditionality has a profound impact on candidate states’ willingness to adhere to EU’s requests. Drawing on the findings from five expert interviews in combination with an analysis of policy documents published by the EU and Turkey, the thesis concludes that the two actors use the geographical limitation as a bargaining chip in the membership negotiations. Whether a lifting of the geographical limitation to the Geneva Convention will be undertaken in the nearest future or not, depends on the forthcoming relationship between EU and Turkey

Students

New regulations of labour immigration from countries outside of EU and EEA have on the 15th of December 2008 been introduced into the Swedish legal system. This research examines the law changes of labour immigration from third countries to Sweden at the time of the ratification of the new law. The aim of this research has been to examine how common labour immigration directives and policies of EU are maintained and implemented in the domestic sphere of Sweden and the possible outcomes on the Swedish labour market by applying the current law implementations. The results show the complexity of combining national laws with EU policies and regulations. The main findings show a difficulty of maintaining an unharmed principle of community preference as well as to preserve Swedish employment standards in order not to risk wage dumping when implementing the new law of labour immigration

Students

New regulations of labour immigration from countries outside of EU and EEA have on the 15th of December 2008 been introduced into the Swedish legal system. This research examines the law changes of labour immigration from third countries to Sweden at the time of the ratification of the new law. The aim of this research has been to examine how common labour immigration directives and policies of EU are maintained and implemented in the domestic sphere of Sweden and the possible outcomes on the Swedish labour market by applying the current law implementations. The results show the complexity of combining national laws with EU policies and regulations. The main findings show a difficulty of maintaining an unharmed principle of community preference as well as to preserve Swedish employment standards in order not to risk wage dumping when implementing the new law of labour immigration

Students

New regulations of labour immigration from countries outside of EU and EEA have on the 15th of December 2008 been introduced into the Swedish legal system. This research examines the law changes of labour immigration from third countries to Sweden at the time of the ratification of the new law. The aim of this research has been to examine how common labour immigration directives and policies of EU are maintained and implemented in the domestic sphere of Sweden and the possible outcomes on the Swedish labour market by applying the current law implementations. The results show the complexity of combining national laws with EU policies and regulations. The main findings show a difficulty of maintaining an unharmed principle of community preference as well as to preserve Swedish employment standards in order not to risk wage dumping when implementing the new law of labour immigration