EU wants to send more people back to Africa, Middle East and Asia

The European Union's migration ministers met on Thursday (26 January) to discuss visa restrictions, better co-ordination within the bloc, and how to allow more people without asylum rights in Europe to return to their homelands.

Only Gambia was formally punished three years after the EU's 27 member nations agreed to limit visas to countries that are not co-operating in taking their people home.

Although similar steps were proposed by the EU's executive European Commission vis-a-vis Senegal, Bangladesh and Iraq, two EU officials stated that cooperation with Dhaka regarding returning people has improved.

According to Eurostat data, however, the EU's total rate of effective returns was still 21% in 2021.

One official from the EU stated "this is a level member states consider unacceptablely low".

The topic of immigration is highly political sensitive in the bloc. Member countries would rather talk about stepping up returns and reducing irregular migration than rekindle their bitter feuds about how to share the responsibility of looking after those who reach Europe.

"Establishing a common EU system for returns, is a central pillar for well-functioning as credible migration and asylum programs," said the Commission in a paper for ministers.

According to U.N data, around 160,000 people crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe in 2022. This route is the main way for refugees fleeing poverty and wars in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Nearly 8 million Ukrainian refugees were also recorded across Europe.

Two weeks before the 27 EU leaders meet in Brussels, ministers will meet to discuss migration and to make calls for more people to be sent home.

"Swift actions are needed to ensure effective returns by the European Union to countries that originated using as leverage all pertinent EU policies," read a draft from their joint statement.

According to the Commission, the EU lacks the necessary co-ordination and resources to ensure that each person without a right to remain is deported or returned to their home countries.

It stated that "insufficient cooperation from countries of origin is an added challenge", and also naming issues such as recognising and issuing travel documents and identity cards.

However, pressure from immigration chiefs to penalize some third countries with visa restrictions in the past has run against the EU's foreign and development ministers or failed to do so due to the conflicting agendas of different EU countries.

The EU has not had enough votes to sanction Gambia. People cannot get multiple visas and are forced to wait longer to be granted entry visas.

While EU countries like Austria and Hungary protest loudly against the mainly Muslim, irregular immigration from North Africa and the Middle East, Germany wants to open their job market to highly-qualified workers from outside the bloc.

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