Undesired properties of the European Commission’s refugee distribution key

The European Commission has proposed a refugee distribution key, which yields respective quotas for European Union/European Free Trade Association member states. It is based on four quantities: GDP, population, asylum applications per capita in the past, and unemployment rates. I show that the given distribution key has properties which contradict the European Commission’s intentions. Exemplarily, states with low (high) unemployment may experience a lower (higher) quota when unemployment is taken into account compared to when it is not. These deviations are single-digit percentages. As a remedy, I propose an alternative distribution key, which avoids the undesired properties. It is modeled in the spirit of the European Commission’s proposal and is based on the same four quantities. Deviations between the two distribution keys are up to two-digit percentages.