The Member States’ permanent representatives to the EU discussed, on Monday 16 September, how to improve the return of illegal immigrants in the EU, at a time when the issue of effective returns was once again raised by the terrorist attack in Solingen, Germany, on 23 August.
During this discussion, the Member States agreed that effective returns are a key element in the fight against illegal immigration. They also agreed that more needed to be done, a source said.
Among the solutions mentioned, some delegations again referred to the letter written in May by fifteen Member States to the President of the European Commission, calling for work on innovative solutions such as the externalisation of asylum procedures. However, the Member States did not go into detail on Monday.
A number of countries also mentioned the full implementation of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ which will bring new tools to reinforce returns, as well as the role of the Frontex agency in helping third countries.
There was also discussion on the return of Syrian and Afghan nationals, with Germany, for example, having begun to return people to Afghanistan in recent weeks, and the need to find appropriate solutions.
Article 25a of the Community Code on Visas, which has created levers for tightening the granting of visas to non-cooperative countries on returns, was also mentioned, as were potential solutions for exerting pressure using development policy or trade policy.
This debate was based on a discussion paper from the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council dated 9 September. In it, the Presidency stresses that “without enhancing and coordinating our efforts in the external dimension, improving the effectiveness of returns, addressing hybrid threats to our external borders, – such as the instrumentalisation of migration – and eliminating pull-factors, the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) will not be able to reduce the overall burden on Member States”.
The exceptional migratory situation calls for exceptional responses based on the necessary legal foundations and innovative, “out of the box” solutions. The Presidency once again deplores the failure of the recast of the Return Directive, which is “at a standstill”, while the European Parliament has not wanted to enter into negotiations with the EU Council on the basis of this recast.
However, the Presidency stresses that the 2018 proposal to recast the Return Directive no longer takes account of the many developments and new challenges in the area of return in recent years.
It therefore states that it would be useful for the EU27 to discuss the next stages of this directive over the coming months. While some sources have recently indicated that the Commission intends to withdraw its 2018 text and replace it, others suggest that it may retain the 2018 basis and accompany it with a new initiative.
The Commissioner-designate for Migration and Home Affairs, Austrian Magnus Brunner, will in any case be responsible, if accepted by the European Parliament, for developing this new EU strategy on returns, as confirmed in his mission statement.
The Hungarian Presidency points out that return figures for the EU as a whole are still well below expectations.
According to Eurostat, while 484,160 third-country nationals were ordered to leave the EU in 2023, only 91,465 of them actually left for third countries. And although, according to Frontex data, actual returns increased by 13% in January-June 2024 compared to the first half of 2023, thanks to increased support from Frontex, “there is still significant room for further improvement”, according to the Presidency.
Externally, readmission agreements and arrangements with the main countries of origin are often difficult to conclude and their implementation remains inconsistent.
For the presidency, “the policy toolbox needs to be extended (and) this should include complementing the existing mechanism under Article 25a of the Visa Code with additional instruments such as readmission conditionality under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Regulation, more strategic use of EU external funding and creating links between migration and other EU external policies but also keeping return as part of overall relations with third countries”.
In principle, the subject of migration should be back on the agenda of the next European Council.
Link to Magnus Brunner’s mission statement: https://aeur.eu/f/dga (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)