Boomerang Effect: Europe Told It Must Do Better on Deportations

If Ursula von der Leyen is right, only around 20% of illegal migrants ordered to leave the European Union are actually deported. The true number is likely to be smaller still.

Even if it isn’t, more figures appear (slowly) to be waking up to the fact that serious action is needed to ensure secure borders.

Michael Spindelegger, director of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), said this week that

If someone comes, isn’t granted asylum, and then stays anyway, and nothing actually happens, that’s a very bad sign for the state of law.

He told AFP it is “very important that a well-functioning return policy is established, also in the spirit of the [Migration] Pact.” Otherwise, there is the danger that even those who are ‘successfully’ removed from the continent are later able to come back anyway.

Spindelegger, whose ICMPD counts 21 (mostly EU) countries as its members, has voiced particular support for Giorgia Meloni’s migration agreement with Albania, which allows Italy to transfer and process asylum requests in centres located on Albanian territory. He told EuroNews in June that “if this works, it could serve as a model for other European countries.”

Brussels officials have slowly been coming around to the same view, but remain a few pages behind. Activist judges also remain determined to bring the agreement down.

After almost a decade in the role, Spindelegger will step down as ICMPD boss at the end of this year. He is set to be replaced by Susanne Raab, a fellow Austrian conservative who has previously criticised rising asylum numbers as posing “a major challenge for integration structures, which are certainly at their limits.”