On Tuesday 24 January, the Commission proposed a new operational strategy on the return of irregular migrants to the EU, intended both to feed into the informal discussions of EU interior ministers, who will meet on 26 January in Stockholm, and those of European leaders, on 9 and 10 February.
The new strategy was presented by the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson and the new EU Return Coordinator Mari Juritsch, who was appointed in March 2022.
Return policy is “a complex area”, commented the coordinator, between national dimension and cooperation with the third country. “Return is not yet seen as a shared responsibility, our return system is not working well and the numbers are not good”, she added.
According to Eurostat, of the 340,515 return orders issued in 2021, 21% were actually enforced.
“We need to set targets and act more quickly to preserve the credibility of our asylum systems”, the coordinator said.
The documents published by the Commission on 24 January identify several priority areas of work: - targeted operational actions, in particular with Frontex; speeding up the return process and closing gaps in contacts between authorities with a decision on immediate return in case of refusal of the asylum application; - “It is also essential to consider the reintegration of the person subject to a return decision with professionals in order to increase the voluntary part of returns”, according to the coordinator; - there is also a need to better digitise the management of returns and to improve the available data and its analysis.
The ministers in Sweden will discuss the tools the EU has at its disposal to encourage greater cooperation with third countries. The Commission has so far identified some 20 countries as being “very uncooperative”, according to one source, but has only sanctioned The Gambia, at this stage, through visa price increases.
Links to the strategy: https://aeur.eu/f/522 , https://aeur.eu/f/523 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)