CGM seminar with Eleni Karageorgiou

European responses to forced displacement from Ukraine: Where do we go from here?

The Ukrainian case has shown that a large-scale movement into several wealthy European states need not create a reception crisis, as long as political and strategic interests of those states point in the right direction. It has also shown that gaps in international law allow regional and national decision-makers to afford more favorable protection to certain groups like Ukrainians than other refugees, e.g., Sudanese or Afghans.

Conflicts and violence persist beyond Ukraine, and so will forced displacement. Taking the European asylum system’s history and architecture as a starting point, this presentation aims to discuss the extent to which the Ukrainian case and the respective European response have the potential to change the narrative for future discussions on refugee protection.