BRUSSELS – The European Union on Tuesday urged its member countries to deport more people entering Europe without authorization who are not eligible to stay, noting that only one in five potential migrants who should be sent home actually is.
“Last year, we had a return rate of only 21% of those who are not eligible to stay,” EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told reporters at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. “When we do not return people to their countries of origin, we hamper our system and erode trust.”
Johansson added that 340,000 decisions were issued in EU member countries last year to deport people, but that in only 60% of cases did European authorities attempt to contact the migrants’ countries of origin to take them back.
“To protect the right to seek asylum, we must show that we are dealing properly with those who do not qualify for international protection,” he added. “We need migration, but it has to be in a legal and orderly manner.”
The arrival of more than one million migrants in 2015, mostly people fleeing war in Syria or Iraq, triggered one of the EU’s biggest political crises. Member countries argued over who should take responsibility for migrants entering European soil and whether other members should be obliged to help.
The conflict continues today. Repeated attempts have been made to reform the asylum system, but there has been little progress. Unable to resolve the central dispute, the EU has resorted to paying the countries through which people leave or transit to prevent them from leaving in the first place.
Johansson said the EU’s coast and border guard agency “is well equipped” to organize deportation flights and urged the bloc’s 27 member countries to take advantage of them.