The ideas to increase methods for deportations from the EU come as the actual number of migrants crossing into the EU are decreasing. In 2023 fewer than 300,000 people made it to the Continent; this year the EU’s border agency, Frontex, estimates about 160,000 migrants have reached Europe. In contrast, in 2015 at the height of Europe’s so-called migration crisis, more than one million people crossed the EU’s borders.
“Today, we see that from all those that have no right to stay in the European Union, only 20 percent of those who have a return decision are really returned to their countries of origin,” she said.
“The idea… is not trivial but it has been discussed,” she said, referring to the “return hubs.” It received enthusiastic backing from Greece’s center-right Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
To expand its deportations, the EU could also revise what it considers a legally “safe” country.
Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Syria — still ruled by dictator Bashar Assad — and Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, should be considered safe countries. Italy is spearheading a push to send refugees back to Syria, which has had no formal diplomatic ties with the EU since the start of its bloody civil war in 2011.
At the same meeting, von der Leyen put the EU stamp on other proposals to keep migrants out.
