The newly-appointed EU representative, dealing with returning migrants to their country of origin, presented the bloc’s “voluntary return” strategy at a parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday, March 22nd.
Mari Juritsch, who has been serving as the European Union’s first Return Coordinator for the past six months, was tasked last year with establishing a common European return system as one of the pillars of the new Immigration and Asylum Pact, currently under development.
On Wednesday, Juritsch briefed members of the LIBE committee (on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs) on the EU’s policy strategy regarding return migration. As she explained, a common approach is crucial to delivering results, as most individual member states appear to be struggling to meet their targets.
“The key objective of the operational strategy should be the enhanced functioning of return, so that the overall number of effective returns increases,” Juritsch said during the initial briefing. “Return should be implemented swiftly to safeguard the credibility of member states’ asylum systems.”
However, the plan Juritsch presented as the solution focused primarily on the “voluntary return” of failed asylum seekers, explaining that this approach was more economically and logistically feasible than “forced return,” or put simply, deportation.
According to Juritsch, voluntary return should play a key role in the bloc’s migration strategy:
to ensure a humane, effective, and sustainable return of irregular migrants, avoiding costly forced returns, and in the end, increasing returns overall. Voluntary return and reintegration give returnees a real opportunity to have their needs taken into account, offering perspectives back in the country of origin, and have them overcome socioeconomic and psycho-social challenges.
Aided by innovative initiatives such as “return and reintegration counseling”—helping migrants make an informed decision to return to their home countries—the Commission believes voluntary return can be significantly increased. Just this year, Juritsch pointed out, Frontex counsellors conducted 547 sessions, resulting in 310 voluntary return declarations. “This is quite some progress,” she said.
The conservative MEPs on the committee expressed support for the common return migration strategy. “It’s needless to say that you have a very important role,” Lena Düpont (EPP), representing the German Christian Democrats said, underlining that voluntary return “is important for maintaining and safeguarding Schengen and has a crucial role in the integrated border management.”
Others, however, wanted to make sure that while focusing on the voluntary approach, the Commission considers forced return options as well. Patricia Chagnon, a French MEP of the ID group, pointed out that voluntary return can be problematic, because failed asylum seekers tend to be economic migrants, who didn’t come to Europe fleeing war or famine, but hoping for a better life, and therefore it’s unlikely that counselling would change their minds.
The problem is based on two issues. First of all, the refusal to leave. We can’t lock people up and just take them back to the border. When they receive an obligation to leave French territory—which usually has a 30-day notice period—then people usually disappear. The other problem is that in many cases, these people have lost their identity or travel documents, and [the countries of origin] refuse to issue new documents for return. Five percent of people ordered to leave French territory will actually leave the country in the end. That failure to return people is a pull-factor, which makes France attractive.
In reply, she assured the committee that the EU was actively looking into solutions for these problems, such as designing common standards for dealing with those who game the system by travelling throughout the entire Schengen area, as well as creating digital platforms with the cooperation of third-countries to address the document issue.
“For voluntary return to work we need to have a credible option of forced returns. That goes without saying,” Juritsch said.
