This chapter presents the institutional preconditions and crisis situation at the EU level and in four types of member states – frontline, transit, open destination, and closed destination states. We show the configuration of interests among these states based on these preconditions and the likely outcomes that derive from them. Given the cumulation of both problem and political pressures in the open destination and transit states, these states are destined to become the major protagonists not only in the national responses to the pressure but also in the search for a joint EU policy response to the crisis. For these states, stopping the inflow of refugees and sharing the burden of accommodating the refugees who have already arrived was a priority. They shared this interest with the frontline states. But the interests of the frontline and destination states differed with regard to the reform of the CEAS: Together with the other member states, open destination states were in favor of restoring the Dublin regulation, while the frontline states wanted to reform the CEAS in such a way that they would no longer have to assume the entire responsibility for accommodating the flood of new arrivals.