Access to international protection remains one of the greatest challenges within the European Union. Irregular routes, particularly across the Mediterranean, despite their high mortality and danger, still represent the most common way to enter its territory. As a result, the need for safe and legal pathways is increasingly emphasized. This master’s thesis examines the humanitarian visa as one such pathway and analyses whether this mechanism represents the most effective solution for safe entry into the Union’s territory, compared to other alternative options.
It finds that although the existing legal framework within the EU allows for the issuance of humanitarian visas, their application is entirely left to the discretion of Member States, resulting in diverse and often inaccessible national practices. Despite the provisions of the Visa Code and Member States’ obligations under international law, no legal duty to issue such visas exists, as confirmed by the case law of both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. This position is strongly contested by legal scholarship, which highlights its inconsistency with the principle of non-refoulement and the right to seek asylum.
Compared to other safe and legal alternatives - such as resettlement, humanitarian admission programmes, temporary protection, family reunification, and labour or educational migration schemes - the humanitarian visa proves to be the most flexible, individualised, and practically applicable mechanism. Nevertheless, in the absence of a common EU framework, its use remains limited, selective, and often arbitrary. The conclusion stresses the need to establish a clear, harmonised, and binding regulation of humanitarian visas within the Visa Code and proposes solutions to the most common legal and practical obstacles. The thesis thus contributes to a better understanding of the humanitarian visa as a key instrument for ensuring safe and lawful access to international protection within the contemporary Common European Asylum System.
|
