EU Accelerates Returns and Fortifies Border Controls in New Migration Push

On 1 October, EU interior ministers and Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs Magnus Brunner approved faster returns at the Justice and Home Affairs Council, a few days after meeting at the Munich Migration Conference on 26 September.

Member states endorsed the transfer of migrants to dedicated detention centres and agreed to log every return decision in a standardized European Return Order, speeding up procedures and improving cross‑border cooperation. Meanwhile, a reinforced European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) will play a larger role in returns, and a new European Emergency Response Framework will boost the Union’s capacity to cope with sudden large‑scale arrivals.

Human rights organisations and NGOs have expressed scepticism about the move, noting that Frontex recorded a nearly 40 % drop in irregular border crossings at the EU’s external frontiers during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.

Marta Welander, EU advocacy director at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), commented that “it is difficult to justify these measures as a proportionate response to current migratory pressure, raising concerns that they may be driven by other political motives.”

The EU’s migration status today

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), irregular sea arrivals stood at 60,000 by mid‑September 2026, down from 98,040 in the same period of 2025.

The central Mediterranean route to Italy saw the sharpest decline, falling 55 % from 48,231 arrivals in 2025 to 21,393 in 2026. Arrivals via the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean routes decreased to 16,794 from 22,855 the previous year. Meanwhile, recorded fatalities increased from 284 in 2025 to at least 2,292 in 2026. Between January and mid‑September 2026, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted 17,067 migrants and returned them to Libya.

First‑time asylum applications have fallen to their lowest point since 2022, according to Eurobarometer. In June 2026, 37,075 individuals sought international protection, compared with 53,025 in January 2022 and a peak of almost 115,000 in October 2023. Italy (9,660), France (9,165), Germany (4,265) and Greece (3,955) absorbed the bulk of these filings, together representing 73 % of first‑time applicants. The number of unaccompanied minors also dropped, from 1,775 in 2025 to 1,105 in 2026.

The EU also granted fewer positive asylum decisions this year. In Q2 2026, affirmative rulings numbered 74,780, down from 89,850 in Q3 2025 and 90,535 in Q3 2024.

Nevertheless, returns are lagging. Compared with Q2 2025, removal orders for non‑EU nationals fell 12 % in Q2 2026. While returns to third countries rose 9.7 %, only 36,825 of the 110,335 removal orders issued have been executed so far this year.

What has the EU done so far?

Over the past decade, the EU has progressively tightened its procedures for unauthorised migrants. Since 12 June 2026, the New Pact on Migration and Asylum obliges member states to adopt a common framework for registering arrivals, verifying identities and swiftly determining the next steps.

Border officials are required to conduct security, health and vulnerability screenings, after which national authorities decide whether the individual enters the regular asylum procedure, undergoes an expedited border process, or is returned.

The revised rules shift much of this screening to the external borders. Irregular arrivals must now undergo mandatory checks before being admitted to the standard asylum procedure, and the system broadens the use of Eurodac—the EU’s database for asylum seekers and irregular migrants.

The Pact also reallocates responsibility among member states, addressing long‑standing complaints from Italy, Greece, Spain and Cyprus that their geographic position burdens them with a disproportionate share of arrivals.

It establishes a permanent solidarity mechanism obliging other member states to contribute in one of three ways: relocating asylum seekers to their territory; contributing €20,000 for each person not relocated into a central EU fund to finance border infrastructure or migration management; or deploying personnel, equipment or other resources to frontline states.

Although the mechanism is now active, its rollout remains uneven. The Commission’s initial review noted advances in Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Italy—particularly in readying authorities for responsibility transfers—but highlighted that several countries still need to undertake additional practical measures.

The EU is also seeking to curb irregular migration before it reaches its borders through cooperation with North African, Middle Eastern and other partners on border management, migrant smuggling, returns and readmission.

Faster returns

The new measures principally tighten the Return Regulation embedded in the June pact, aiming to render returns quicker and more straightforward.

Migrants who lack the legal right to stay must depart the member state where they are present and must cooperate with national authorities; failure to do so may trigger sanctions such as reduced benefits, allowances or even criminal penalties.

Member states may transfer migrants to so‑called “return hubs”—detention centres situated outside the EU, modelled on Italy’s facilities in Albania—where individuals await deportation. The Group of Five (Denmark, Germany, Greece, Austria and the Netherlands) aims to launch the first hubs by 2027, with Uzbekistan, Rwanda and Uganda under consideration as possible sites. Individuals deemed a security risk can be barred from re‑entering the EU indefinitely or held for longer than 24 months.

The IRC cautions that return hubs are counter‑productive because they risk exacerbating the dangers faced by migrants. Welander warned that individuals dispatched to a third country lacking durable legal status or protection may be driven to attempt re‑entry via irregular, more perilous routes or fall back into the hands of smugglers and traffickers.

Welander described the proposals as a “sticking plaster” rather than a sustainable solution.

She added that outsourcing migration management makes the EU dependent on third countries, which then obtain leverage to use migration cooperation as a bargaining chip, and stressed that the approach is not merely a technical fix for slow deportations but a political decision to shift migration oversight beyond the reach of EU law and courts.

What happens to migrants’ rights?

From the outset, return hubs have been the most contentious element of the reform package. NGOs and human‑rights advocates across Europe label them “deportation facilities” and warn of rights violations, even though the EU insists the centres will be built in safe third countries and that returns will comply with international law.

Chiara Catelli, advocacy officer at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, warned that the EU’s label of a “safe” third country is meaningless, as a state deemed safe by the Union may still be unsafe for particular individuals. She cited Amnesty International’s documentation of rights abuses in Uganda and Rwanda, including arbitrary detention and other repressive measures.

She added that such facilities cannot be constructed in a way that respects human rights, arguing that no safeguard can legitimise deportation centres as a migration‑management tool. Sending people to unfamiliar locales far from the lives they were building violates the right to private and family life.

Catelli further warned about the inhumane conditions migrants could encounter and the absence of safeguards to protect their rights, noting that even in Europe immigration detainees already suffer appalling conditions, and questioning how the situation could improve in locations where civil‑society or independent oversight would be far more difficult or entirely absent.

Stronger border controls and response capacity

The new rules also strengthen protection of the EU’s external border, with member states proposing to expand Frontex’s mandate and reshape it from a protection agency into a repatriation agency equipped with its own task force.

According to Welander, granting Frontex a larger operational role in returns—including possible actions in third countries and at return hubs—does not address the underlying diplomatic and legal bottlenecks, though it does raise significant accountability concerns. She noted that Frontex is already under scrutiny for its alleged involvement in pushbacks and fundamental rights violations, including an ongoing investigation into Greece.

The EU intends to boost the Drone Action Plan with an additional €130 million on top of the existing €250 million, aiming to develop new border‑security technologies and deepen migration diplomacy with third countries in order to curb migration flows at their source.

Ministers also examined the European Emergency Response Framework put forward by the European Commission in September, designed to bolster the EU’s capacity to respond to sudden large‑scale arrivals or what President von der Leyen termed “engineered and weaponised” migration.

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