“The era of deportations has begun.” A few months ago, this line from far‑right Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers sounded like a provocation. Now, after the agreement on the EU’s new Return Regulation between Parliament, the member states and the Commission, it reads more like an accurate description of theEuropean Union’s political direction. With the legal framework for sending migrants to deportation camps outside Europe nearly complete, several member states — Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece — have intensified their search for countries willing to host them, mainly in Africa, far from the European continent, according to diplomatic sources. The political battle is over; the geographical one is just beginning.
Human‑rights organizations have criticized the new regulation — which comes on top of other already tough measures — and compared the EU’s trajectory to the aggressive immigration policies ofDonald Trump’s administrationin the United States. “This regulation will create a draconian system of detention and deportation,” says Silvia Carta, policy officer at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM).
NGOs warn it will expose hundreds of thousands of people to imprisonment inmigrant detention centersin third countries for an indefinite period (within the EU, the maximum period will be 30 months), as well as family separation and transfers to countries they do not know and with which they have no ties. “Across the Atlantic we see the violence and fear generated by the brutal enforcement of immigration law by ICE. Europe should learn from the harms of that model, rather than build its own version,” Carta added.
The European Commission insists the new regulation, together with other measures, will help increase the number of removals of applicants who have not been granted asylum. Today, just 28% of migrants whose applications are rejected return to their country of origin, according to Eurostat data that Brussels repeats constantly. Supporters argue that deportation camps would serve both as a solution and as a deterrent. “With the new rules, we have more control over who can come to the EU, who can stay, and who needs to leave,”said Interior and Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner, who supports a tougher European migration policy.
The decisive question now is whether this strategy can overcome the obstacles that doomed previous initiatives, such as Italy’s model in Albania, where it opened facilities to send asylum seekers that have cost billions and that, for now, have been a failure. The legislation is nearly finalized; what remains is whether member states can actually find places to open these deportation centers.
Cyprus’s deputy minister for migration and international protection, Nicholas Ioannides, said on Tuesday the general idea is to create them in areas possibly in Africa or Asia. “Not near Europe’s borders,” Ioannides said, stressing that, in any case, host countries must guarantee the rights of those deported.
Dutch liberal MEP Malik Azmani, the European Parliament’s lead negotiator — though the final text was drafted by the European People’s Party with support from further‑right groups — has not ruled out agreements with non‑EU Eastern European countries, though he agrees Africa is the most likely destination. In any case, he said, it is up to interested member states to negotiate.
There is urgency to negotiate. Diplomatic sources say the legal framework to open deportation camps could be ready before the summer. “Every month of delay is a month that the system keeps failing,” Azmani argued. “Europe cannot afford another period of standstill,” he said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Both Azmani and Ioannides — whose country holds the rotating EU Council presidency this semester — stress that the text, significantly tougher than the European Commission’s original proposal and reflecting thecontinent’s shift to the right, represents the position of a large majority of member states and MEPs on migration.
They noted in several meetings with the press that evidence of this is the fact that several countries are already actively discussing how to set up these centers in third countries. Ioannides said he is confident that more states will join that list over time.
Source: Drudge Report
