The first lesson is the importance of policy preparedness. Since 1999 the EU has been working to create a framework which standardises the management of refugees, the Common European Asylum System, and improve the current legislative framework. In the past couples of years, several legislative measures harmonising common minimum standards for asylum were adopted, including Dublin regulations I, II and III.
However, while regional policies have been introduced, when it comes to their implementation a lack of common political will has resulted in nationalist immigration policies and increasingly anti-refugee politics in several EU countries. Politicians in those countries, feeling insecure and fearful about the effects of immigration, are instead preoccupied with vague ideas about national identity, religious inconsistency, and far-right ideology.
While ASEAN still lacks a regional refugee framework, when it comes to burden sharing, member countries have already shown that they can work together on the issue. We can see the evidence in the Indochinese crisis of 1975 to 1995. As a result of war, some 1.4 million refugees fled Cambodia and Vietnam, seeking asylum in neighbouring countries. Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), Southeast Asian countries agreed to provide temporary asylum.
As others have noted, despite the CPA’s flaws “it undeniably achieved its goal of ending the Indochinese refugee crisis. In a few years, the number of Vietnamese seeking asylum each year plummeted from 70,000 to an astonishing 41. At the same time, the much small number of refugees arriving overland from Cambodia and Laos also diminished.”