On Monday 13 September, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) submitted a report in which it considers that the European policy on the return and readmission of illegal immigrants in the EU has not been effective. The EU, which so far has 18 readmission agreements and six non-binding agreements in place, has also made insufficient progress in negotiating new readmission agreements with third countries over the 2015-2020 study period.
Paradoxically, the Court of Auditors also observes, on the basis of feedback from Member States, that informal and/or bilateral agreements with third countries are often more successful.
In particular, the Court criticises the use of sanctions or punitive elements, which have the effect of encouraging illegal immigration into the EU, as an inefficiency factor.
“Every year since 2008, around half a million third country nationals have been ordered to leave EU territory because they have entered or stayed there without authorisation. However, fewer than one in five actually return to their country of origin outside Europe”, the ECA recalls in its preamble. The rate of effective returns even drops below 20% when it comes to countries that are not on the European continent.
The Court explains this weakness by the difficult cooperation between the EU and these countries of origin, as well as by the lack of synergies between the Member States and between the different European policies, according to Leo Brincat, who is in charge of the report. The Commission itself has been criticised for not systematically involving Member States in the process of negotiating readmission agreements. The auditors also note “insufficient progress regarding measures to encourage third countries to fulfil their readmission obligations”.
The Court therefore makes four recommendations to the Commission: a more flexible position when negotiating readmission agreements; better intra-EU synergies; the development of positive incentives for third countries, and the improvement of data collection. The Court mentions the difficulty of obtaining homogeneous and comparable statistics and data from the EU27.
However, the report is not all negative. Most of the “capacity building and reintegration projects” for migrants funded by the Commission have been “relevant” and effective, as has action to strengthen the cooperation between Frontex and the Member States.
Return policy is the weak point of European migration policy, as the Commission also stressed in September 2020 in its new ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’. On that occasion, the Commission announced the appointment of a returns coordinator at EU level to improve exchanges between Member States on these issues, but one year later, the coordinator has still not been appointed.
Link to the ECA report (in French): https://bit.ly/3lo0n7l (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)