Material reception conditions for asylum seekers in the EU: the Swedish implementation from a perspective of multi level governance

Författare

Jessica Trulsson

Summary, in English

In 2013, the EU established a Common European Asylum System in order to harmonize the asylum laws throughout Europe. One of the directives in this common system is a revised version of the Reception Conditions Directive from 2003, establishing rules for housing, clothing and food for the asylum applicants. The directive from 2003 should be in place in all Member States of the EU and on the 21st of June 2015, the new revised version becomes applicable.

This thesis in sociology of law studies the implementation of the reception conditions directive from 2003 in Swedish law and practice. The focus lies on Swedish legislation on reception conditions for asylum seekers and the practical work of the authority responsible for asylum reception - the Swedish Migration Board. Through a qualitative method of semi- structured interviews with employees at the Migration Board, the implementation is further discussed and problematized in order to point out challenges that Sweden will face when interpreting and implementing the new directive. Through a model based on multi-level governance and possible diverging paths in the implementation-process, the judicial and practical work with the Reception Conditions Directive is analyzed in a Swedish context. The “common concepts” in EU-law that should make provisions clear and harmonized in a European context might in fact be one of the biggest challenges in the national implementation process due to difficulties in interpretations, that poses a veiled divergence on the EU. The challenges of conceptual divergence in the implementation process will be further discussed in this thesis, with the focus of what this might mean in the Swedish context with its specific social reality and legal culture.

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