Brussels is open to creating camps to deport migrants outside the EU
The European Commission's proposal gives Member States the green light to create deportation centres for immigrants in third countries
BrusselsNew measure to tighten the European Union's migration policy inspired by The recipes advocated by the extreme right. Brussels has proposed this Tuesday a legislative reform that opens the door to the possibility that Member States can deport irregular immigrants - except for minors - to centres located in third countries and with which they have a repatriation agreement with state governments or with the EU as a whole. According to the European Commission's statement, the objective of the reform is to "make more agile, simple and effective" the deportations of immigrants who live in the EU without permission.
This proposal, which will now have to be negotiated and validated by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, comes months after a majority of European leaders will be in favour to the creation of migrant camps outside the community block and that Ursula von der Leyen herself announced at the end of last year that she would propose "innovative solutions", the euphemism she used to refer to these centres. Thus, as promised, Brussels has finally advocated allowing the rest of the Member States to reproduce throughout the EU the plan of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who has financed centres to deport irregular immigrants to Albania. For the moment, Rome has been to stop the initiative at the request of the European Court of Justice.
Beyond the camps in third countries, Brussels also proposes that all returns from the EU be managed in a "uniform manner and through a simplified procedure" and that irregular immigrants must cooperate with the authorities. If they do not, they can be punished with "the withdrawal of travel permits", such as passports, and "the reduction or denial of subsidies" they may receive. On the other hand, if they cooperate, "they will receive incentives" and "support" for a potential return. In addition, the community executive wants to extend from eighteen months to two years the time that immigrants who are allegedly living in the EU without permission can be detained.
A plan that is failing
The European Commission assures that all measures that member states carry out under the legal umbrella of the new EU return directive will comply with international law and human rights. However, there are doubts about the legality of sending migrants to centres outside the community bloc, especially if there is no guarantee that it is a safe country and that it does not violate the rights of people who have been forcibly displaced.
In fact, this is the main obstacle that Meloni's plan has encountered. The European courts only consider the Balkan countries and Cape Verde to be safe countries of origin, and the vast majority of migrants arriving in Italy and the EU as a whole are not of these nationalities. Therefore, the Luxembourg court considers that a return process cannot be initiated if their country of origin is not classified as "safe" by European regulations.
For this reason, the European Commission is expected to reconsider the label of what it considers a "safe country" and expand the list of non-EU states that can be included. Brussels intends to avoid legal impediments and facilitate at least the deportation of these migrants to camps outside the EU, even if they cannot be returned to their country of origin.
In this regard, beyond the legal impediments, the EU faces great difficulties when returning irregular immigrants to their country of origin. For years, the community block has only managed to deport 20% of immigrants whose application has been denied because they often cannot be located or because the countries of origin do not want to accept them. For this reason, Brussels intends to sign agreements with countries of origin and encourage member states to reach bilateral agreements with these states.
In fact, Brussels has sealed several agreements in recent years with third countries such as Tunisia and Mauritania so that, in exchange for multi-million euro investments, they will stop the migration routes heading towards the EU. One of the main problems with these pacts is that these third countries have great power to extort Brussels and the member states, and in several cases end up instrumentalising immigration for political ends. This is the case of Morocco with Spain: managed to change the Moncloa's position on Western Sahara.