Keres
A common system for the return of third-country nationals staying illegally in the European Union
According to Directive 2008/115/EC, third-country nationals staying illegally on the territory of a European Union (EU) Member State should, as a general rule, be issued a return decision obliging them to leave the EU. However, available data suggest that, among those who receive such a decision, only about a quarter actually leave the EU. The limited effectiveness of the return policy is due to several challenges that the EU and Member States face when carrying out return procedures, including difficulties ...
Commission proposal for a revised Facilitation Directive: Targeted substitute impact assessment
This study constitutes a targeted substitute impact assessment of the Commission’s proposal for a revised Facilitation Directive (COM(2023) 755), presented on 28 November 2023 as part of a package to address migrant smuggling. It provides a critical review of the existing legal and policy framework at EU level and its shortcomings regarding transposition and implementation. It also undertakes a critical and thorough appraisal of the proposed objectives and measures in terms of coherence, effectiveness ...
Planned revision of the EU Return Directive
According to Directive 2008/115/EC (the Return Directive, RD), third-country nationals (TCNs) staying illegally on the territory of a Member State should, as a general rule, be issued a return decision obliging them to leave the EU. However, available data suggest that among those who receive such a decision, only about a quarter actually leave the EU (see Figure 1). Data on irregular migration, as well as returns statistics, should be used carefully, as they are often incomplete, inconsistent and ...
Implementation of the EU pact on migration and asylum
Over the past decade, the EU's asylum and migration systems have been severely tested by several major events, including the 2015-2016 migrant crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and recent tensions at the EU's eastern border. To address these challenges, in 2020 the European Commission proposed a pact on migration and asylum, a comprehensive legislative framework designed to streamline and harmonise the reception of asylum seekers in the EU. The pact was adopted by the European Ϸվ and the Council ...
Measuring irregular migration and returns in the EU
Irregular migration is hard to define and to measure. Several EU datasets provide indications of a range of aspects of irregular migration, such as attempted irregular crossings of EU external borders, detected irregular stays, loss of regular status and removals of irregular migrants. However, these datasets are often incomplete, inconsistent, and insufficient to capture the complex issues of irregular migration and return. Despite its shortcomings, data on irregular migration is highly consequential ...
The facilitation of irregular migration by criminal networks
Migrant smuggling is a key activity for criminal networks operating in the EU, sustained by continued demand for facilitation services. Geopolitical and socioeconomic instability worldwide, as well as climate change, are expected to keep driving migratory movements. Migrant smuggling is a high-profit, low-risk business, and the criminal groups involved are increasingly sophisticated, professional and violent. Many of those who willingly pay smugglers to help them cross borders do so at great personal ...
Effective remedies for asylum-seekers at EU external borders: New pact on migration and asylum
The European Union's objectives in the field of external border protection are to safeguard freedom of movement within the Schengen area (an area without internal borders) and to ensure efficient monitoring of people who cross the Union's external borders. To strengthen its external borders and prevent irregular migrants from reaching its territory, the European Union (EU) has turned its focus to extending its partnerships with third countries and to reinforcing its border agencies, providing them ...
Revision of the Schengen Borders Code
In December 2021, the European Commission presented a proposal to amend the Schengen Borders Code, which lays down the rules governing controls at the EU internal and external borders. While debates on the reform of Schengen have been going on for a while, recent challenges – relating to the coronavirus pandemic on the one hand, and attempts to instrumentalise migrants as a way to put pressure on the EU's external borders, on the other – have brought new momentum for reform. The Commission's proposal ...
Revision of the visa suspension mechanism
In October 2023, the Commission submitted a proposal to revise Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 in order to strengthen the visa suspension mechanism. This mechanism allows the EU to temporarily suspend visa exemptions in the event of increased irregular migration or security risks from a visa free country. The proposal addresses three main challenges to the EU visa regime: the misalignment of visa policies of certain visa-free countries with the EU visa policy; the growing number of asylum seekers from ...
Recast Eurodac Regulation
Eurodac is a biometric database in which Member States are required to enter the fingerprint data of asylum-seekers in order to identify where they entered the European Union (EU). Established in 2000 and reviewed in 2013, its main purpose is to facilitate the application of the Dublin Regulation. The 2013 revision of the regulation broadened its scope to provide law enforcement authorities with access to the Eurodac database. As part of the reform of the common European asylum system in 2016, the ...