The Schengen Council meeting on 5 December will raise the issue of a “European return decision” that would harmonise deportation procedures and practices across the bloc and increase the number of third-country nationals expelled from EU territory.
The document says that despite political efforts to improve mutual recognition of member states’ national return decisions, “fragmentation will remain.”
Accordingly, “it is probably worth looking ahead towards the new legislative period and start designing a European return decision, by analysing the elements and solutions it should contain.”
The issues raised in the document concern, among others, return decisions, “the abuse of asylum systems with a view to delaying or avoiding returns.”
Some measures aimed at combating “unfounded” asylum applications are under active discussion: the forthcoming Regulation on Asylum Procedure, currently under discussion, will introduce an accelerated procedure for last-minute asylum applications. Significantly, the same law may allow people to be deported before a final decision on their application is made, although this is subject to negotiations by the Council, Parliament and Commission.
The Presidency also calls on member states to intensify the use of Frontex deportation services: “Such Frontex organised flights have already been implemented to Albania, Nigeria, Bangladesh and most recently, to Georgia and Albania,” says the document. “The flight to Bangladesh had a participation of 9 Member States, with 63 returnees on board of the flight, demonstrating a real European approach.”
What is special about such measures is that from 2022 onwards they take advantage of the “novelty” of “Frontex-organised returns on charter flights.”
The document goes on to celebrate further novelties: “The last Frontex organised flight to Albania and Georgia with 59 returnees on board, organised under a pilot project with Spain, apart from having a double destination for the first time, also tested another novelty, i.e., combining voluntary and non-voluntary returnees on board.”
The practice of using this kind of flights, as mentioned above, “should become a common practice.”
The migration issue has long been at the top of the European agenda, as migration is growing due to a multitude of factors, such as the conflict in the Middle East and the Ukrainian-Russian conflict.
