Article 18 of the Charter guarantees the right to asylum. EU law requires that all applications for international protection be registered and examined in a fair and efficient manner.

The rules set out in the Screening Regulation (EU) 2024/1356 and the Asylum Procedure Regulation (EU) 2024/1348 provide a clear EU law framework to ensure that everyone who requests asylum is swiftly channelled into asylum procedures and protected from return until an enforceable decision on the application is taken. The Pact also envisages prompt examination of certain applications, considered likely to be manifestly unfounded, in the asylum border procedure.

One of the functions of the hotspot approach was to facilitate access to asylum procedures for those in need of international protection. Nevertheless, in March 2020 and July 2025, emergency measures in Greece suspended access to the asylum procedure for certain categories of arrivals, respectively for one and three months.

More generally, in its 2019 opinion on the hotspots, FRA noted that the processing of asylum claims in facilities at borders, particularly in remote locations, although per se not unlawful, brings along built-in deficiencies. Difficulties to deploy the needed experts and equipment to such locations created significant delays in examining asylum claims, contributing to the overcrowding of reception centres. Providing adequate information to ensure that new arrivals are aware of the possibility to claim asylum, as well as know the procedure, related rights and obligations was particularly challenging in cases of large numbers of arrivals.

Concerning asylum, selected lessons learnt from the hotspot approach, are that: 

• Exceptional situations should be dealt with by using the flexibility embedded in EU law. An example of this is extending registration deadlines, without resorting to measures that conflict with the Charter or international law. For the specific situation at the EU’s Eastern border, FRA’s publication on Countering the instrumentalisation of migrants and refugees and respecting fundamental rights (2025) provides guidance.
• To ensure that asylum procedures can cope with unexpected workload increases, contingency planning is paramount; to this end, Member States can refer to resources, such as the EUAA’s guidance on contingency planning in the asylum procedure (2024) and UNHCR’s guidance on preparedness in its emergency handbook.
• Greece’s accelerated processing of manifestly well-founded applicants coming from third countries with a high recognition rate leads to swift decisions and is a promising practice to consider.
• In the hotspots, the authorities cooperate with external actors to provide information, such as the EUAA – which developed a set of materials on this, the UNHCR and child protection or humanitarian organisations, with promising results.