Li Yibin

(Associate Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, Lanzhou University)

The impact of COVID-19 on the EU's refugee reception and asylum system

Due to social segregation and blockade measures, most EU countries (especially during the first wave of the epidemic from March to June 2020) have a mountain of asylum cases. At the same time, the epidemic highlights and exacerbates the existing problems in the whole EU asylum system. In particular, the housing and public health safety of refugees, COVID-19 has caused a great negative impact on the European Union and refugees.

EU's measures to deal with relevant risks

After the outbreak, the European Union issued the measures for the protection and reception system under the COVID-19 emergency situation in June 2020, which comprehensively and systematically expounded the measures for the EU and its member states to deal with COVID-19. According to the report, during the COVID-19 pandemic, most European Union countries took urgent and special measures to protect public health safety. According to the constitution, EU member states have announced the launch of emergency and exception provisions, allowing the authorities to implement some emergency measures to deal with the challenge of the epidemic.

Problems in EU related measures

The EU and its member states are struggling to cope with it. However, the effect of prevention and control against the epidemic is not so good. The epidemic in Europe has experienced the second wave of high tide and may face the impact of the third wave. The refugee problem, as a special issue, has become a loophole and short board in the EU epidemic prevention. Although the EU has formulated emergency measures for the reception and asylum of refugees, the temporary remedial measures have not fully achieved the expected effect, and there are still some problems in the protection of refugees.