Dublin Regulation

The Dublin Regulation (Regulation 2003/343/CE; sometimes the Dublin II Regulation; previously the Dublin Convention) is a European Union (EU) law that determines the EU Member State responsible to examine an application for asylum seekers seeking international protection under the Geneva Convention and the EU Qualification Directive, within the European Union. It is the cornerstone of the Dublin System, which consists of the Dublin Regulation and the EURODAC Regulation, which establishes a Europe-wide fingerprinting database for unauthorised entrants to the EU. The Dublin Regulation aims to “determine rapidly the Member State responsible ” and provides for the transfer of an asylum seeker to that Member State. Usually, the responsible Member State will be the state through which the asylum seeker first entered the EU.

The Dublin Regulation was adopted in 2003, ostensibly replacing the Dublin Convention. The Dublin Convention was signed in Dublin, Ireland on 15 June 1990, and first came into force on 1 September 1997 for the first twelve signatories (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom), on 1 October 1997 for Austria and Sweden, and on 1 January 1998 for Finland. Recently, the treaty has been extended to some countries outside the Union, such as Norway and Iceland. Switzerland has become a signatory to the Regulation and on 5 June 2005 voted by 54.6% to ratify it; it came into effect on 12 December 2008.

On 3 December 2008, the European Commission proposed amendments to the Dublin Regulation, creating an opportunity for reform of the Dublin System.