Solidarity in EU asylum and migration law: crisis management tool or structural principle?

The chapter addresses the role of the principle of solidarity in the context of EU asylum and migration law. After tracing the gradual emergence of solidarity as a legal principle in the EU legal order, it argues that the polysemic character of solidarity as a legal concept makes it more difficult to understand its meaning and implications. Focussing on the inter-State dimension of the principle of solidarity, the chapter shows that different views of solidarity are prevalent in different policy areas: while within the Economic and Monetary Union solidarity is conceived of as an exceptional tool, in the context of asylum and migration policies the Treaties envisage it as a structural principle. Actual practice shows that financial solidarity has emerged as a significant crisis management tool in the EU policies on asylum and migration, but that its broader, structural dimension has so far been largely neglected.