Meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday 1 October, EU Interior Ministers formally adopted the Regulation on the return of irregular migrants, approved by the European Parliament three months earlier (see EUROPE 13890/13).
The vote drew 23 votes in favour, with Belgium abstaining and Spain voting against. Denmark and Ireland, which have opt-out clauses in justice and home affairs, did not take part in the vote.
Replacing a 2008 Directive, the new Regulation establishes an EU-wide harmonised framework for enforcing return orders. In particular, it removes the automatic suspensive effect of appeals and allows irregular migrants to be transferred to ‘return centres’ outside the EU pending readmission to their countries of origin.
Irish Minister for Home Affairs Jim O’Callaghan welcomed a Regulation that “perfectly complements the Pact on Migration and Asylum”, and, more broadly, a legislative framework “that has already proved its worth”, according to European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner.
Return hubs. Although they confirmed that they had met before the Council of the EU meeting, Ministers from the ‘Group of Five’ involved in establishing these centres gave no further details of their talks with potential partner countries. “These agreements must be viable in the long term, which is why they still need time”, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt explained, reiterating the aim of signing a partnership before the end of the year (see EUROPE 13931/11).
The previous day, MEPs Anna Strolenberg and Tineke Strik (Greens/EFA, Dutch) confirmed to several journalists that negotiations between the ‘Five’ and Rwanda and Uganda were progressing (see EUROPE 13930/8), following a visit to both countries.
Although the Rwandan authorities remain vague about the number of migrants envisaged, they are reportedly particularly “eager” to conclude what they describe as “migration and economic partnerships” with Member States on a bilateral basis, the MEPs reported. They fear that Kigali could use these agreements to limit criticism of its human rights record and its support for M23 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Uganda, the President of the European Parliament reportedly referred to the “imminent signing” of a memorandum of understanding. Kampala has reportedly also set criteria for the migrants it would receive — “Africans, with no criminal record, and no political opponents” — unlike Rwanda, which has a priori imposed no conditions: a “red flag” for Mrs Strik.
The MEPs again warned that such agreements would be “difficult to reconcile” with international law: “We can put down on paper that we want to respect human rights, but once we outsource this responsibility, we cannot guarantee it”, Mrs Strolenberg stressed, noting that recent US deportations to Rwanda had exposed the limits of transparency and NGO monitoring: the NGOs had been unable to locate the people transferred, many of whom were “subsequently deported again”. (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)