Kristyna Tamchynova

This article analyses the EU’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis, both inside the EU and in the Syria’s neighboring countries. It first focuses on the background of the common asylum policy of the EU and major challenges posed by the refugee crisis to the common EU refugee policy. The article then focuses on an analysis of the impact of the refugee crisis on the EU, the failures of the EU to adopt a common approach towards the refugees from Syria, and the EU initiatives. As the Syrian refugees/asylum applicants constitute a large part of the asylum applicants/refugees in the EU and because the core documents do not differentiate among the refugees based on their nationality, we will simplify the EU position towards the refugees by assuming that it holds true for the Syrian refugees specifically. Should there be a special condition applied to Syrian refugees only, this will be explicitly mentioned.