Good morning from Brussels, EU interior ministers will explore new ways to improve the return of irregular migrants to non-EU countries at an informal meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday, diplomats told Euractiv. A non-paper signed by 15 member states—including Germany and France—calls for a review of the Return Directive, which was last reviewed in 2008 and is now considered insufficient by these countries when it comes to ensuring removals.
Nicholas Wallace and Théo Bourgery-Gonse explain that another idea is to focus on ‘return hubs’ for processing irregular migrants outside of the EU, as Italy has already done with Albania, and boost partnerships with non-EU countries to address the “root causes” of irregular migration. Hungary, which currently holds the EU rotating presidency, will preside over the meeting, which is expected to lay the groundwork for the upcoming summit on 17-18 October. Politically, the migration debate found fertile ground to re-emerge on the surface after far-right parties scored high in several elections across the bloc. Moreover, EU capitals keep an eye on the Middle East conflict and potential new refugee waves from that region. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, known for his long-standing anti-migration stance, backed on Tuesday establishing “hotspots outside the EU” and said that, in the end, every EU leader would agree with him. Meanwhile, Germany has seen a decrease in asylum applications after the government’s migration crackdown. | 