EU set to embrace migrant offshoring hubs at today's summit
Sending asylum seekers to third countries was condemned as illegal by the Commission in 2018. But this week President von der Leyen reversed and declared herself open to the idea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Brussels today to attend a summit of the EU’s 27 national leaders as a guest. Though he is expected to push to end the Hungarian block on further EU aid to Ukraine until the US election result is known, there is little expectation that he will be able to make Viktor Orban relent. Indeed, nobody is expecting any progress on the Ukraine issue today as the world waits to see whether a change in leadership in the United States will see the country abandoned. Instead, the issue dominating today’s summit will be migration - thanks to a dramatic reversal by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier this week.
The president sent a letter to the 27 leaders on Monday ahead of today’s summit saying the Commission would consider a new proposal on the Returns Directive to set up “return hubs outside the EU” in order to quickly deport asylum-seekers who do not have a valid claim. “The EU’s migration policy can only be sustainable if those who do not have the right to stay in the EU are effectively returned,” she wrote. “However, only around 20% of third country nationals ordered to leave have actually returned.” The Juncker Commission had proposed a common approach to returns in 2018 but there was no majority for it in Council, the upper chamber of the EU’s legislature made up of national governments. In her letter the President said it will be a first priority in her first term to make a new attempt.