ANALYSIS On Europe’s External Southern Borders Situation Report on Migration Management MARÍA JOSÉ CASTAÑO REYERO& CECILIA ESTRADA VILLASEÑOR• ANGELIKI DIMITRIADI• ANDRÁS KOVÁTS• UGO MELCHIONDA& ANTONIO RICCI• SENADA ŠELO ŠABIĆ• THE ECONOMICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS INSTITUTE August 2018 As the summer 2015 brought many changes, EU member states have since adopted several modifications concerning their border management and asylum systems. Still, these capacities are not satisfactory in handling arrivals. In fact, each country keeps relying on their own instruments. This report takes stock of the situation at six EU external southern borders. In the context of the EU-Turkey Statement, Greece has created two very different systems within itself: Asylum seekers on the mainland have access to comparatively strong assistance, while those on the islands are faced with the prospect of being returned to Turkey. In Italy, the number of new arrivals has dropped sharply due to its controversial externalization policy. The report for Spain questions the adequate access to international protection and the tools to fight irregular entries, including pushbacks and police brutality. As for the EU’s external borders on the mainland, Hungary erected a fortified fence and transit zones, while in Croatia the issue was solved very differently. For the border with Turkey, Bulgaria’s main political goal was to reinforce border security and to slow down reception and resettlement flows. Overall, border and migration management has been perceived solely as a security question. Humanitarian aspects have been widely neglected. Insufficient human resources and experience are a problem at most of the borders examined. The connection between a lack of legal entry points for asylum-seekers and the flourishing of the smuggling business needs to be taken into consideration. A common system for harmonizing procedures at external borders while simultaneously securing the rights of asylum seekers would be one of the logical and necessary steps to take.