With the issue of the return of illegal immigrants in the EU due to be discussed by EU Home Affairs Ministers in Luxembourg on 10 October, followed by the European Summit in Brussels on 17 and 18 October, 17 European countries, including 14 Member States, have prepared a discussion paper on how they envisage the new legal framework for returns.
Drawn up by the Netherlands and Austria and supported by France, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta, Sweden and Slovakia, as well as Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway, this letter, revealed by Reuters on Friday 4 October and seen by Agence Europe, puts forward ideas for the new strategy on returns announced by the President-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
More specifically, these countries want to contribute to a forthcoming legislative review, while the recast of the Returns Directive presented in 2018 has been blocked for years, due to a lack of agreement in the European Parliament; they want a new text.
“The current Return Directive, presented in 2005 and adopted in 2008, originally aimed to establish minimum guarantees, standards and procedures for returns. Almost 20 years have passed since then and the situation has changed considerably. As a result, the current legal framework does not sufficiently reflect the needs of the Member States to ensure effective removals”, these countries point out.
The new legislation should meet five major objectives, they write.
Firstly, it should introduce “a paradigm shift in the return process”, towards obligations and duties for third-country nationals who are the subject of a return decision. “People without the right to stay must be held accountable. A new legal basis must clearly define their obligations and duties. Non-cooperation must have consequences and be sanctioned”.
A new legal basis is needed in the form of a state-of-the-art legal framework that responds to real challenges and developments, and reflects the needs of Member States and associated states, “taking full account of countries’ flexibility to ensure effective returns. For example, through further supporting digitalisation and simplifying procedures”, the letter continues.
The Commission is invited to take into account the partial general approach of the June 2019 EU Council and the ideas put forward at that time or under the Belgian Presidency, such as “a clear list of grounds for detention” of a person subject to a return decision. The 2019 mandate also provided for “as a last resort, and where a series of guarantees are provided, the possibility of returning a third-country national to a safe third country (other than the country of origin or transit)”.
The Asylum Procedures Regulation also provides for this possibility, but only if there is a personal link between the returnee and the safe third country, a link that several Member States now want to call into question.
The new legislative framework should also render the CJEU’s extensive interpretation unnecessary, stresses the fourth objective.
Finally, the Commission is called upon to propose its new legal basis as quickly as possible and to seize every opportunity to informally consult and involve the Schengen member states and associated states.
European summit. According to draft European Council conclusions dated 5 October, on 17 and 18 October the EU27 are expected to call for “intensifying cooperation with countries of origin and countries of transit, through mutually beneficial partnerships, to address root causes and to fight trafficking and smuggling, with a view to preventing irregular departures and loss of life”.
The European Council calls for determined action at all levels to increase and speed up returns from the EU. It invites the Commission and the EU Council to swiftly put forward a new common approach to returns.
It is also expected to reaffirm the will to combat the instrumentalisation of migrants for political purposes. The EU27 could also stress the need to consider new ways of preventing and combating irregular migration, in accordance with international law, but without using the now fashionable term ‘innovative solutions’, as put forward in a letter from 15 Member States last May.
Link to the provisional conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/dqz (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)