Limits to Harmonization

The “Temporary Protection” of Refugees in the European Union

Bibliographic Data

ID9953793
AuthorsKhalid Koser (University College London, corresponding author), Richard Black (0000-0002-8003-2605)
Year1999
Volume37
Issue3
Pages521-543
Publication date1999-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Migration (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7985 • E-ISSN: 1468-2435
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-2435.00082
OpenAlexW1988515760
LanguageEN
Citations received27

This article examines the limits to harmonization at the level of the European Union through a case study of policy towards people who fled the war inBosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s. Specific attention is paid to the development of the policy of granting“temporary protection” instead of full refugee status to Bosnian asylum‐seekers, which stretched across all fifteen member states. It is argued that “temporary protection” emerged as a set of specific responses to the outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia, involvingcompromises between states’ desires to restrict asylum on the one hand, but meet demand from public opinion and international organizations to offerprotection to refugees on the other. Subsequent analyses have suggested that these compromises might providean effective way forward for harmonization of policy at a European level,and even a reformulated international system of refugee protection. However, the authors question this view: they analyse the extent to which“temporary protection” for Bosnians was coordinated, and whether it actually provided the states and individuals with the benefits that have been suggested

Bosnian · Business · Comprehensive Plan of Action · Development economics · Economics · European union · Harmonization · International trade · Political science · Refugee · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration