Kafka’s Trial and the EU Dublin Asylum System

This contribution examines the Dublin system, the legal framework put in to place by the European Union (EU) in the implementation of its so-called common asylum policy. The author unveils the paradoxes, contradictions and flows of the system, by putting the legal rules in the geopolitical context of the EU member states and the wider world. These monstrosities are shown through the narrative of Kafka’s trial – an enduring trial, where the possibilities of acquittal are always elusive and a tragic end is always in sight. The defendants are sometimes alternatively, most times simultaneously the EU member states disproportionally affected by the immigration phenomenon (Italy and the other Mediterranean countries) and the migrants themselves (including asylum seekers) – as they die in their journey to reach the European soil or are met with inhuman reception conditions and/or refouled to their country of origin. On the dock, however, is also the EU – a victim of its own policies.