During a working party meeting on Thursday, 27 July, experts from Member States will discuss how to increase the number of returns of irregular migrants to the EU by improving the mutual decision-making process among them and the recognition of decisions handed down in the EU.
The discussion will take place on the basis of a discussion paper dated 19 July. In particular, it will be a matter of examining the application of Council Directive 2001/40/EC of 28 May 2001 on the mutual recognition of decisions on the expulsion of third-country nationals.
“Mutual recognition of return decisions can facilitate and speed up the return process and improve cooperation and mutual trust among Member States. Moreover, it can also contribute to deterring irregular migration and discouraging unauthorised secondary movements within the Union”, writes the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU.
Directive 2001/40/EC “sets out a valuable basis for reducing the administrative burden of return procedures in the Schengen area as a whole. However, two main problems have hampered the obtention of significant results so far”, it adds in its preamble.
“There was no way [of knowing] if return decisions had been issued to a certain person by other Member States”. In addition, the “[d]ifferences among the requirements and guarantees set out by the Member States’ legal systems have not allowed for the automatic implementation of mutual recognition in many cases”.
The entry into force of the Schengen Information System (SIS) recast has been useful—having introduced a new alert category: the ‘alert on return’ in the SIS.
The European Commission has also adopted a recommendation on mutual recognition of return decisions (see EUROPE 13136/7 and 13141/3).
But the issue of non-alignment of Member States’ legal systems “has not been solved and is likely to remain a considerable obstacle”.
The ‘Return Directive’ already gives Member States the option of using a standard form for return decisions, but “there is a need to broaden this and consider working towards a common standard form [...] available in all official EU languages”.
It could include [the following]: “the reasons in fact and law for the decision, including a statement on illegal stay, the obligation to leave for a third country and a reference to the assessment of the principle of non-refoulement; information on entry bans; information on available legal remedies; information on practical means to comply with the return decision [...]; the consequences (i.e. removal) in the event of non-compliance with the period for voluntary departure, if this has been granted; [and] the consequences in the event of onward movement to other Member States, including the fact that an alert on the return decision will be entered in the Schengen Information System”.
Link to the paper: https://aeur.eu/f/86p (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)