ABSTRACT
This part conclusion present some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters. The part describes the difficulties in establishing protection mechanisms for asylum seekers and refugees in Europe. It takes up some of the main arguments and puts them into a Central Eastern, Eastern, and South Eastern European perspective. The part carves out the tensions between Western countries, in particular the United States, and the Soviet Union in establishing international rules and organisations on this issue. It addresses states' administrative capacity as a major obstacle to the harmonisation of EU asylum policies. A comparison of weighted averages for Western and Eastern European countries included in the European Social Surveys 2002 and 2016 reveals an increasing polarisation of opinions, especially on allowing immigrants with a different ethnic background, which was the case during the 2015/2016 refugee crisis.
