Keith is correct asylum seekers are supposed to hand in their applications in the first EU country they reach, but many travel illegally through Europe to reach a country where they have a better chance of being granted residency.

The EU is a major destination for asylum seekers, receiving 103,500 new applications during the first six months of 2008.
Most of these were from Iraq.

The Dublin regulation contains clear rules about the Member State responsible for assessing an application for asylum. It is an important instrument for the prevention of multiple demands and
allows EU countries to return refugees to the country of entry.

Greece, with its long coastal borders, is at the front line of migration to the European Union, with nearly 20,000 new asylum applications lodged there last year

Under this pressure Greek asylum procedures (described as 'Abolish appeals. No backlog. No Problem.') are just the tip of the iceberg of a system that fails at every stage to protect refugees and unaccompanied children.

These failures include illegal push-backs of migrants at the Turkish border, the puncturing of boats in the Aegean Sea, deplorable conditions of detention, police brutality, and various legal and administrative tricks to keep asylum seekers from lodging a claim, all of which Human Rights Watch exhaustively documented in two reports published late last year.

see also "Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey Entrance to the European Union." by Bill Frelick

I am of the opinion that the only way of managing the asylum issue is on a European-wide basis.

In the UK there is a false perception that this country carries an unfair burden, compared with other EU members which is fueled by scare headlines in the right wing press and the activities of the BNP etc

Ironically, newspapers and political leaders in other countries are equally convinced that they are the victims of similar iniquities!