The Dublin System vis-à-vis EU Solidarity before the European Court of Justice: The Law, The Whole Law, and Nothing But The Law!

The chapter aims at exploring the European Court of Justice (ECJ) case-law concerning the relationship between the Dublin system and the solidarity principle enshrined in Article 80 of the TFEU. Starting from a legal analysis of Article 80, attention is paid to some decisions (e.g. N.S., X. and X., A.S. and Jafari, the “relocation” case), in which the ECJ has followed a cautious approach. Notably, it held, on the one hand, that responsibility criteria of the Dublin system cannot be derogated for solidarity reasons (even by way of interpretation or in the case of massive inflows of asylum seekers); on the other hand, that solidarity has to be implemented in legislative acts in order to fully reach its goals, being understood that a breach of such acts by some “reluctant” Member States is, first of all, a violation of the principle of loyalty provided for in Article 4(3) TEU.