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EU backs return hubs
European lawmakers approved a clear hardening of the continent's migratory policy, giving their green light to the opening of detention centers in third countries through the creation of "return hubs" to send migrants out of the European Union.
“The Council of European Interior Ministers on Monday took the most drastic step in migration policy since the 2015 crisis”
Le Parisien said that of 627 Members of the European Parliament, 389 backed the measure, and it described the approved text as authorizing member states to open centers in countries located outside the EU where people whose asylum applications have been rejected could be sent and possibly detained.
Radio-Canada reported that the European Parliament validated the concept of return hubs and said the vote drew a thunderous round of applause in the chamber.
Le Parisien added that the text also provides stricter rules and penalties for asylum seekers whose requests are refused, including confiscation of identity documents, detentions, and prolonged entry bans, and it includes mutual recognition of decisions taken by any given Member State.
Meloni model and court
Le Parisien said the idea of creating hubs to detain migrants before or after examining their asylum applications is not new, and it cited Italy testing the system in Albania, where in February it housed around 90 people according to a source within Italian authorities.
Radio-Canada said an agreement on the subject had also been sealed between the United Kingdom and Rwanda, but London quickly abandoned the project due to judicial obstacles and the two countries were now facing each other in court.
Le Parisien reported that a small group of EU member states—Denmark, Austria, Greece, Germany, and the Netherlands—formed to study the two models and learn from their "mistakes," while Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt explained the goal to conclude by the end of the year agreements with third countries.
In a separate legal development, Cadena SER said the European Union's Advocate General endorsed in non-binding conclusions the migrant detention centers that Italy under Giorgia Meloni has established in Albania, while awaiting the CJEU ruling.
Rights, detention, and stakes
Le Parisien quoted Labour and NGO-linked critics and said ecologist MEP Mélissa Camara opposed the text, arguing that "audits consistently miss the most dangerous conditions because they are announced in advance" was not the only issue but that the Return Regulation would violate fundamental rights.
“European justice gives a green light to the sustained hardening of migration policy that EU countries have been consolidating in recent years, with the isolated exception of Pedro Sánchez's government”
Radio-Canada said Marta Welander of the NGO International Rescue Committee warned of "a historic rollback of refugee rights," worrying about the multiplication of detentions of vulnerable people, including children.
El Español reported that the Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Nicholas Emilíou, endorsed the Italy-Albania arrangement but set a caveat that the creation of such centers in non-EU countries requires full respect for the rights and individual guarantees of migrants provided in the European asylum system.
Le Parisien also described the operational stakes as the approved text would authorize member states to open centers in countries outside the EU and apply mutual recognition so that a decision made in France could apply in Spain and vice versa.
