The Shoppers; Venue Shopping, Asylum Shopping: A Resolution in EURODAC?

Abstract

The term shopping used in reference to two strictly legal/politically somewhat related issues ‘Asylum shopping’ and ‘Venue shopping’, belong to two different spheres of actors. Asylum shopping is descriptive of the action of asylum seekers selectivity, in choice of member state where they perceive better social and welfare conditions. Venue shopping, a concept introduced by Guiraudon in 2000, explain the action of movement by member states in the European Union from venues of national jurisdiction, less amenable to their search for more restrictive migration policy to venues howbeit transnational like transit countries and EU institutions suitable for their policy perspectives. This they did for the primary purpose of avoiding adversary activities of non-state actors and the judicial scrutiny within their national sphere. Common European Asylum System (CEAS) the Dublin Directive and the EURODAC are spill-over in the European integration Project, commonly referred to as the Schengen acquis in the area of migration and integration of third country nationals. The three directives are the results of policy search to administer the entrance and residence of third country nationals especially in the area of irregular migration.

This paper seeks to examine the inter-relationship between the two actors to which the commercial term shopping describes, how an electronic regulation in EURODAC became a check to their ‘shopping.’ For the asylum seekers exposing their agency, for the member states reducing anxieties, and influenced the ceding of powers hitherto held by member states through (intergovernmental) negotiations to the EU (Supranational) and the impact of these policy measures in checking security challenges and sanitization of this angle of asylum administration in the EU.