Brussels will return asylum seekers more often
I had fallen asleep, Mark Rutte said honestly on Tuesday. “Due to the low influx figures during corona, migration has faded into the background for too long.”
The Prime Minister of the Netherlands is now well awake. On Tuesday, he came to Brussels to share his concerns on the subject with Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. Rutte wants the European Commission to hurry on various fronts, because EU countries can no longer cope with the influx of asylum seekers.
Just as Rutte was telling the press what he thinks the EU should do to reduce asylum seekers, European Commissioner Ylva Johansson, 300 meters away, confirmed new plans to reschedule the return of lost asylum seekers.
“The reception capacity of some European countries is quite stretched,” said Johansson. “It is necessary that we die people who do not need international protection to return to the country from which they came.”
300,000 rejections
Johansson said 300,000 asylum applications are processed annually, but only 70,000 are returned. To increase that figure, the European Commission appointed a ‘return coordinator’ last year, Mari Juritsch.
Juritsch and Johansson agreed on Tuesday about the strategy with which they want to increase the number of returned asylum seekers. “We have to do that because the only way is to keep protecting the people who need it,” Johansson said.
Johansson will make efforts to make arrangements with so-called ‘countries of origin’, but they expect the summary to also submit return requests to those countries. “Currently, only 16 percent of rejections are followed by a return request to the country they came from,” said Johansson.
Return coordinator Juritsch said they noticed that national governments often don’t have time to submit return requests. “Those people are often also responsible for the reception of refugees from Ukraine, which then has a higher priority.”
Also sees that the asylum seekers are resisting return. “These people have often come with high expectations. They have spent all their savings, that of their family and sometimes the whole village on their journey.”
Mentor
Juritsch therefore wants a disabled asylum seeker to always be recognized as a return counselor who helps with the return. The returnee also receives an amount of money. “We give them a new start in their own country. This will also make it easier for countries to take back their burgers.”
The European Commission will conclude agreements with countries where it is certain that human rights will not be violated and that asylum seekers can return safely. “That’s the low-hanging fruit,” said Johansson.
The Commission has a stick behind the door: citizens from countries that do not want to cooperate with return are more difficult to obtain a visa for EU countries. “That works extremely well,” said Mari Juritsch.
Return coordinator Juritsch added that the return figures may be less dramatic than they appear, because the EU does not deport people to areas where they are at risk. Those people are included in the numbers.
European Commissioner Johansson will discuss the new return policy with the European ministers of migration on Thursday. Who meet in Stockholm to discuss the highly sold asylum and migration figures.
The number of asylum seekers will approach one million by 2022. At the same time, almost five million people from Ukraine came to Europe.
Serbian route
As far as Rutte is concerned, improving the return scheme is one of the things that the European Commission must do. He also wants Johansson to keep pressure on the economy. In the past year, many asylum seekers came to the EU via Serbia.
He does not expect concrete results in the short term. After the migration ministers had first consulted, Rutte expected that the heads of government would have to meet twice before they made concrete agreements. “We will hopefully be a long way further in April.”
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