EU’s proposed new deportation law slammed as ‘unworkable and inhumane’

The European Commission this week proposed the establishment of a common European system for deportations – or “returns” – with swifter, simpler and more effective return procedures across the EU.

The proposed regulation would provide for mutual recognition of return decisions, allowing a member state to recognise and directly enforce a return decision issued by another member state without having to start a new process.

Forced returns will be mandatory when a person illegally staying in the EU does not co-operate, absconds to another member state, does not leave the EU by the given deadline for voluntary departure or is judged to be a security risk.

The proposal also controversially includes reference to “return hubs”, whereby individuals can be returned to a third country based on an agreement or arrangement concluded bilaterally or at EU level.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said: “Only around 20 per cent of those who have a return decision leave Europe. This number is by far too low.

“This is why we will put in place common rules for return decisions, with a European return order, and mutual recognition of return decisions by member states.

“We will always fully respect fundamental rights and international law, but those with no right to stay must be swiftly removed, and there must be clear consequences for those who do not cooperate.”

However, Amnesty International accused the Commission of having “caved to the unworkable, expensive and inhumane demands of a few shrill anti-human rights and anti-migration governments”.

Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European institutions office, said: “The Commission itself discarded the concept of ‘return hubs’ in 2018. It is well aware that these proposals will lead to human rights violations, waste millions of euros and alienate allies – at a time when the EU needs friends.

“Despite this, today’s proposal lays the ground for states to send people to countries to which they have no connection, to languish in detention centres, with little credible guarantees that their rights will be upheld. Frankly, this is a new low for Europe.”

Amnesty International and over 100 human rights organisations across Europe have warned that these proposals are an alarming departure from international law, would have severe diplomatic, legal and financial implications for Europe, and are likely to result in a grave pattern of human rights violations, including refoulement and arbitrary detention. 

“Across Australia’s offshore detention scheme, Italy’s agreement with Albania, or the UK’s aborted Rwanda scheme, we have seen these tried-and-failed policies before,” Ms Geddie said.

“They consistently result in drawn out litigation, costly centres sitting empty, lives in limbo, as well as systematic arbitrary detention and other grave rights violations. Such proposals are not only endlessly cruel, but catastrophic in reality.”