Dutch MEP Tineke Strik (Greens/EFA) presented her report on the implementation of the 2008 Returns Directive to the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties on Thursday 2 July and identified a series of shortcomings that she believes the Pact on Asylum and Migration should correct.
On the basis of an EPRS (European Parliamentary Research Service) study in a few Member States (including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain), she first deplored the fact that the Commission had not submitted a regular evaluation to Parliament.
On the substance, she criticised the fact that the rate of returns (on average, only 40% of return decisions are enforced at EU level) is seen as a marker of the success of this instrument, whereas “it says nothing about the successes and failures of the directive”.
She also criticised Member States for over-using the derogations provided for in the directive, which may constitute infringements of fundamental rights, and expressed her preference for Member States to insist on voluntary returns of people who cannot legally stay in the EU.
In most of the countries studied, these people, having been refused asylum, are also subject to a double penalty of being banned from entering European territory, even if they accept voluntary return.
Ms Strik therefore proposes that those people who have voluntarily agreed to return to their country should be able to return to the EU without an exclusion order.
She also criticised refoulement practices in border areas where the Returns Directive does not apply, which should change.
Her statement was supported by some S&D, Renew Europe and GUE/NGL MEPs, but was attacked by the EPP and the Commission.
On this very sensitive issue, Portugal’s Paulo Rangel (EPP) criticised the idea of allowing returnees to return to the EU without restrictions, saying it was logical that an entry ban should accompany a person who has not been allowed to stay in the EU. “There is a political bias in this report”, he said.
While welcoming the usefulness of the report, Renew Europe’s Fabienne Keller (France) wanted to recall that a defective return policy had an impact on asylum policy, a shortcoming that must be addressed.
Like others, she was also concerned about the fate of people who cannot stay in the EU, but who cannot be returned either, sometimes because of problems of non-acceptance in their country of origin, transit or lack of civil status documents. People who should be regularised, according to Ms Strik. The Directive provides for the obligation to give the right of residence in certain situations.
Sophie in’t Veld (Renew Europe, the Netherlands) said that one of the main problems was cooperation with non-Member States and accompanying returnees on the spot, while cases of Afghan migrants sent back from the Netherlands and then tortured on their return had been in the news in her country. What “matters is not the rate, it is the quality of the returns”, she argued.
The Commission, for its part, recognised that several points in the Directive could be discussed, such as the length of detention (allowed up to 18 months) or promoting voluntary returns and alternatives to detention. However, its representative considered that there were flight risks, if the time limits for voluntary returns were extended. The Commission representative also felt that lifting the entry ban might not be fair, as the EU could not let people “just leave and come back like that”.
The Commission evaluates the implementation of the Directive on a very regular basis. And the Member States are behaving rather well, for example by regularly reviewing detention decisions by courts. In addition, most automatically stop or suspend the return decision as soon as an appeal is made, he added.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/2AtTqhG; link to the EPRS study: https://bit.ly/2C4onJt (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)