This ECRE policy paper is organized as following:

- Chapter 1 provides a short description of the relative pressure on EU Member States and the uneven distribution of asylum caseloads between EU Member States and briefly analyses the legal basis in the Lisbon Treaty for responsibility-sharing and solidarity in the field of asylum.

- The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) as a key actor for promoting and coordinating responsibility-sharing is addressed in chapter 2 from the perspective of its independence and cooperation with civil society and other EU agencies.

- Chapter 3 advocates for a permanent health and quality check of the CEAS through a boosted early warning mechanism.

- Finally, chapter 4 provides further analysis and recommendations on the ways in which responsibility is already being shared between EU Member States and engages with current debates on joint processing and the possibility of an EU distribution key for asylum seekers. While rejecting the idea of an EU wide distribution key for asylum seekers as being unrealistic and undermining the fundamental rights of asylum seekers, ECRE advocates for further enhancing free movement rights for beneficiaries of international protection. In the long term, beneficiaries of international protection should be granted free movement rights immediately after recognition.

A list of recommendations is included in the Annex.