Over the last 20 months, the EU has come under a great deal of criticism regardingits response to the refugee crisis. From outside of Europe, the EU has been accusedof a lack of political will and common purpose. However, the external criticism wasexceeded by far by the opposition from some of the Member States and its exaggerateddepiction as a policy of non-compliance by some of the media.Contact to the authors: Christina.Krause@kas.de; Olaf.Wientzek@kas.de