The European Commission has said it will explore controversial proposals to set up sites outside the EU, where member states would send rejected asylum seekers before they are returned to their home country.
Under pressure to take a tougher stance on migration, commission president Ursula von der Leyen signalled her support for the idea of “return hubs” outside the EU’s borders, where asylum seekers would be sent after their claims were rejected.
In a letter to member states, Dr von der Leyen said the union should “continue to explore possible ways forward as regards the idea of developing return hubs outside the EU”. The sites would be located in “third countries” under agreements made with the EU, probably in exchange for significant funding. The commission, which is the executive arm of the EU, would draw “lessons” from a deal Italy has struck to ship thousands of asylum seekers to Albania while their claims are being processed, she said.
The letter from Dr von der Leyen was sent to national capitals before a two-day summit of the 27 leaders in Brussels starting on Thursday, where migration and asylum policy is expected to feature heavily in discussions.
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A commission spokeswoman said officials were looking into proposals for “returns hubs” outside the EU’s borders, which would require new regulations.
A previous assessment of the idea by the commission in 2018 said it would present “significant legal and practical challenges”. That assessment said such a plan would have a high risk of breaching the principle of non-refoulement, which sets out that asylum seekers should not be returned to a country where they could be at risk.
A group of 15 member states raised the idea for “return hubs” in May, saying these would be sites where rejected asylum seekers “could be transferred to while awaiting their final removal”. The letter was signed by ministers from Italy, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria, among others.
Separately, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk’s weekend call for a “temporary, territorial suspension of the right to asylum” of people crossing the border from Belarus prompted a flurry of protest in Poland.
Announcing the news at the party conference of his ruling Civic Platform, he surprised leftist members of his ruling coalition who say they were not consulted. Almost 50 NGOs, including Amnesty International and the International Auschwitz Committee, warned that the “fundamental rights and freedoms that every person is entitled to are not subject to discussion and political bargaining”.
Mr Tusk promised to defend the plan this week in Brussels, where he would argue that Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are exploiting asylum rights as part of their efforts to revive the migration crisis on the EU’s eastern outer border.
The German federal government is also to agree radical proposals to cut to a bare minimum welfare payments and material provisions to any asylum applicant found to have applied for asylum in another EU country before coming to Germany.
Expedited deportations of such individuals to their EU country of origin will only apply, however, if the migration authorities rule it “legal and possible” for individuals to be deported.
According to the new rules, agreed after a series of fatal attacks with asylum seeker perpetrators, deportations will be fast-tracked in the cases of people who commit crimes or if they travel back home on a holiday. Exceptions will apply for family emergencies or occasions such as a parent’s funeral. The package is set to pass the Bundestag on Friday, amid criticism from both conservative and left camps that it is either piecemeal and ineffective or draconian and racist.
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