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EU countries have faced difficulties in dealing with refugee in flows since 2015. People seeking asylum have been welcomed by some, while others have been concerned about the burden and the potential cost of hosting refugees.On a humanitarian level, images of adults and children risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea in small boats and struggling to reach their intended destinations have concerned the public. These images have led to questions about where and why people choose to seek asylum. Policymakers need to understand the factors that drive people to go to certain destinations, and whether the strategies and policies deployed in each destination deter or attract people seeking asylum. This policy briefing shows that the strongest pull factor for people seeking asylum is existing social networks, rather than economic reasons.

This paper examines the effects of natives' anti-immigration attitudes on migration flows to EU countries. We use panel data for migration to the EU between 1995-2018. We address the potential endogeneity between public attitudes and migration flows using instrumental variable techniques. We also control for the dependence between the attractiveness of alternative EU destinations. Our findings suggest that there is a negative causal relationship between anti-immigration attitudes and migration inflows to the EU from both EU and non-EU countries; i.e. natives' hostility discourages immigration. However, the elasticity of immigration to public attitudes is higher than the elasticity of immigration to economic factors for EU migrants.

The recent so called Mediterranean refugee crisis has ignited concerns about the magnitude of the flows of asylum seekers to Europe. This paper examines the determinants of the destination choice of first time non-EU asylum applicants to the EU, between 2008-2020. It investigates the role played by policies related to employment rights, processing of asylum applications, attractiveness of the welfare system, economic factors and networks on the destination of asylum seekers within the EU. We find that the strongest pull factor for asylum seekers to a destination is social networks both in terms of previous asylum applicants as well as stock of previous migrants. Our findings also suggest that employment bans are not a strong deterrence for asylum seekers given their modest association to asylum flows.