What asylum and refugee policies do Europeans want?

Following the large increase in the number of refugees and other migrants arriving and applying for asylum in Europe in 2015, EU member states have been engaged in highly divisive debates about how to reform the EU’s asylum and refugee policies. A number of new and diverse policy models have been proposed, offering contrasting ideas about the meaning and scope of the right to asylum in Europe, resettlement of refugees from conflict regions, minimum standards of protection, assistance and cooperation with origin and transit countries, and responsibility sharing across EU member states. To debate and decide on competing visions for policy reform, it is crucial that we understand better the public’s preferences for the various different dimensions of asylum and refugee policies. To this end, this project conducts a series of conjoint survey experiments to study the asylum and refugee policy preferences of citizens, and how they vary across individuals.

The first conjoint experiment was conducted in May and June in six different EU Member States: Germany, Italy, Sweden, France, Hungary, and Poland.