Two successive directives have aimed at harmonising reception conditions for asylum seekers in Europe . Yet the situation from one country to the next varies greatly. Overview.

While access to asylum was generally handled directly by the authorities tasked with handling application registration and assessment, in 2014 and 2015 various European countries implemented pre-reception systems to cope with the surge in asylum applications.

On June 14th, after several months of negotiations, the European Council and Parliament reached an informal consensus agreement on the new recast of the Reception Conditions Directive.