BRUSSELS Oct. 10 () –
The Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, has tried to tone down the debate on the creation of deportation centers outside the European Union by stating this Thursday that there is no formal proposal on the table and that the priority must be to apply the new Migration Pact. at the end of a meeting of 27 where the vast majority of delegations have demanded the tightening of policies to accelerate expulsions and punish third countries that do not cooperate.
“We are doing something big with something small, there is no proposal from the European Commission, there is no formal proposal from anyone, what there is is a debate about how to increase returns and that is an important debate,” the Swedish socialist concluded. , at the end of what will probably be his last meeting of EU ministers since he will not repeat it in the next community Executive.
At a closed-door lunch, the ministers explored the tightening of migration and asylum policy with “innovative solutions” included in a working document circulated by the Hungarian presidency to which Europa Press has had access and which is based on a prior communication signed by 14 countries, including Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands, but not Spain.
The document proposes, for example, creating deportation centers in third countries other than the one of origin or transit of irregular migrants arriving on EU soil or punishing countries of origin that do not cooperate with returns with trade measures or visa restrictions. .
Asked about Spain’s position upon arrival at the meeting, the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, avoided commenting on the options on the table and limited himself to underlining the “importance” of the Migration and Asylum Pact that was managed to close at the beginning of the year after more than six years of negotiations.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, advocated this week for bringing forward the application of the pact from 2026 to 2025, but the minister has not set a date but has insisted on the need for an “immediate implementation” of the common immigration reform and “continue working on prevention and coordination” with transit and origin countries to stop irregular flows.
In any case, the need to expedite returns and accelerate their processing, especially in cases of people convicted of crimes or who pose a threat to national security, is at the center of the discussions and the reflection will come next week to the summit of EU heads of state and government to be held in Brussels, according to various diplomatic sources.
Several diplomatic sources suggest that this reflection that is now open to Twenty-Seven is a form of pressure on Brussels to withdraw that proposal, which several countries already consider obsolete, and present a new, tougher approach.
Already in the guidelines that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, published last September on the program for her next mandate, she hinted at her intention to present “a new common approach to returns, with a new legislative framework that allows us to speed up and simplify the process.
Along these lines, the new French Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, has stated that the current directive on returns was designed when “the world was radically different” and that now its application complicates rather than facilitates expulsions; so he has demanded a new proposal in “months”.
For the Belgian Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, it is “really necessary” to reform the return rules because “faster processes are necessary” and “introduce the obligation to cooperate” to allow the returns of irregular migrants to the countries of origin or transit when fleeing to Europe. “There are weak links in the chain,” insisted De Moor, who, however, also stressed the need to put the Migration Pact into practice.
Regarding the possible tools to put pressure on third countries that do not accept deportees, the French minister has evoked trade measures or restricting the visa policy – as the EU already does with Gambia and Ethiopia – and has even referred to using aid to development, without clarifying how.
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