Luxembourgish implementation of the Common European Asylum System: Insights from a small-scale country

Within the so-called migration crisis, the focus of media and research has been mainly on Mediterranean countries, which were the first impacted by the arrival of refugees, as well as big recipients of asylum seekers such as Germany. Less attention has been directed toward small-scale countries such as Luxembourg, where the number of registered refugees arriving has more than doubled in 2015 and 2016 compared to 2014. In 2016, Luxembourg had 3582 registered first time applicants, which represents one of the highest numbers relative to its population in the European Union. Against this background, this presentation will focus on how Luxembourg has dealt with the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and the ways in which it has been affected by the so-called migration crisis. This paper will particularly focus on the question of reception of asylum seekers and refugees. Given the large number of applicants relative to the small size of the country, and the limited number of administrative levels, how was reception implemented, and what are the lesson to be learned? It will do so by mapping the main actors involved in the refugee scene. It will then move on to the contextualization of the reception of refugees in the housing and employment market. Finally, it will critically examine the stakeholders’ involvement in order to find the gaps in the asylum seeker/refugee reception.