In exceptional circumstances, such as the 2015 refugee crisis, Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston considers, in conclusions handed down on Thursday 8 June (cases C-490/16 and C-646/16), that the member state in which applications for international protection were first lodged is responsible for examining those applications.
The above two cases relate to the Western Balkan migration route, which in 2015 was used by over a million people to enter the European Union. The first case (C-490/16...