EU Auditors Call for Overhaul of Ineffective Migrant Return Policy

"The actions taken by the EU to strengthen cooperation with third countries on readmission were relevant, but they (have) produced few results," the EU Court of Auditors says in its audit report covering the period from 2015 to mid-2020. There are 500,000 of these individuals ordered to leave the European Union each year, as they do not have authorization. However, only a third of them return to their countries of origin. In the eyes of the report’s author, Leo Brincat, "the EU’s return system suffers from such inefficiency that it produces the opposite effect of what is expected: it encourages more than it discourages irregular migration." "Migrants know well that returns are not effective, so it can actually encourage them to come," he said at a press briefing.

Based on these findings, the European Court of Auditors calls on the European Commission to review its policy of agreements with countries of origin - including Morocco, Algeria, China, Tunisia, Jordan, Nigeria - to adopt "a more flexible approach when negotiating readmission agreements," and "create synergies with Member States to facilitate readmission negotiations, strengthen incentives for third countries and improve data collection on readmissions," reports RFI.

According to the auditors, it is necessary for the EU to speak "with one voice" on the matter. The inability of the Union’s countries to agree on a reform of the right to asylum, six years after the 2015 migration crisis, is "worrying," they say. "It is often our asylum and immigration policies, or rather sometimes their absence, that create these conditions of illegality for people. And that’s how sometimes people have to wait for a decision for several years and when the negative decision comes, the people have integrated into the country, children are in school, and it is no longer possible to go back home. We also need to understand that some countries do not accept to take back their nationals," comments François Gemenne, a political science researcher.