The European Union Temporary Protection Directive: an example of solidarity in law but not in practice. A Review of Temporary Protection in the European Union 1990-2015.

Temporary protection mechanisms emerged in Europe in the 1990s in response to mass influxes of asylum seekers. The influxes of asylum seekers from Yugoslavia, fleeing conflicts and violence resulting from the break-up of that country, have been closely associated with its emergence. In the light of the developments in that period, and in particular the responses of European states to the Yugoslavian influxes, this paper reviews the emergence of temporary protection. It reviews the convergence of European norms which lead EU states to agree the Temporary Protection Directive in 2001. The paper juxtaposes the 1990s Yugoslavian influxes and responses, with the 2015 European refugee crisis and the responses of the EU. These responses have included arrangements to relocate asylum seekers from states under the most pressure but have excluded temporary protection. The omission of temporary protection is consistent with the findings in this paper, which show that EU states came to disfavour temporary protection as a response to asylum crises. The paper concludes that while EU states did commit to a set of standards for temporary protection, they did not commit to implementation of temporary protection.