The EU is set on ramping up efforts to tackle illegal immigration as it’s revealed that “less than 20 percent of expulsion orders are followed up”.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is now saying that the EU should consider “return hubs” in third countries to speed up ejections of undocumented immigrants.
The plans seem very reminiscent of the UK’s previous Conservative government’s aim to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing.
Von der Leyen made the comments in a letter to capitals ahead of an EU leaders’ migration summit later this week in Brussels.
She said The EU isn’t effective at removing people who arrive illegally as only around one in five of the non-EU citizens ordered to leave have done so.
Now, she says, new legislation will facilitate the expulsion of irregular migrants.
The letter said « the Commission will present a new legislative proposal » with « clear obligations of cooperation for those returned » and the desire to « efficiently streamline the return process ».
The President of the Commission is responding to the request of several EU member states.
She added: « We need a new legislative framework to strengthen our capacity to act.”
« We need to build a level of harmonisation and trust that will ensure that migrants, subject to a return decision in one country, cannot use loopholes in the system to avoid this return elsewhere, » explained Ms von der Leyen.
Brussels is proposing to facilitate the expulsion of people in an irregular situation by establishing mutual recognition of decisions taken by one member state or another.
She said that « visa policy alignment” had proven to be an important tool to manage irregular movements to the EU, giving Bangladesh and Ghana as examples.
The Commission President also suggested developing « strategic » relations with countries of origin and transfer, as has already been done with Libya and Tunisia. The EU has already signed agreements with these countries that are supposed to slow down the departure of migrants to the EU from their territory, or even repatriate them to their countries of origin.
Her comments come just a week after EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said no plans for the use of deportation centres had been made.
In 2022, Ms Johansson slammed the then-conservative government in the UK for its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
She said at the time: “Sending asylum-seekers more than 6,000 kilometres away and outsourcing asylum processes is not a humane and dignified migration policy.”
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