External processing involves applications for international protection
being processed beyond the European Union’s (EU) external borders, in
third states. An individual who has been
processed externally would then, in theory, be resettled to an EU
member state. The reality is that external processing has, thus far,
only served as a talking shop for member states. Without proper
examination of what the policy could add and of the political, legal and
institutional hurdles involved, external processing will simply remain
as member states’ go-to ‘crisis’ policy without any real intention of
ever pursuing it.
