Repatriations of migrants from EU countries are on the rise. Nearly half are forced

Brussels – Ahead of a proposal to strengthen the EU legislative framework on returns, which Ursula von der Leyen announced for March 2025, member countries have set to work. According to Eurostat data released today (Dec. 18), last summer, 27,740 migrants who had received a removal order were returned. Compared to the summer of 2023, while the number of orders to leave an EU country remained roughly stable at around 112,000, actual returns increased by 35 percent.

France is by far the country that issues the most removal orders: 30,800 in the last hot season, 27.4 percent of the EU total. In second place is Germany, which ordered 13,660 migrants to leave the country, and third was Spain, with 13,645 removal orders. In the same period, Greece and Italy delivered 7,435 and 7,130 orders to leave the country to non-EU nationals, respectively.

The problem, however, is the actual transfer to third-countries people who national authorities say have no right to stay. It requires bilateral agreements with the countries of origin, which are expensive and difficult to organize. It is why the radical idea of relying on actual repatriation hubs outside EU borders is increasingly taking shape in Brussels, or providing, on the model of the Italy-Albania protocol, facilities where to examine requests for protection in third countries, so that, in the event of a negative outcome, we do not have to deal with the problem of repatriation.

Meanwhile, from July to September 2024, the highest number of people returned to a third country was recorded in France (4,240), Germany (4,060), and Spain (3,160), In absolute terms, it is so, but when compared with the number of removal orders issued, the figure on repatriation – and on who succeeds most in carrying them out – changes dramatically. France removed only 13.7 percent of the people it ordered to leave, Spain 23.1 percent, while Germany did better and comes in at a ‘repatriation rate’ of 29.7 percent.

Italy also continues to find obstacles despite the significant efforts of the Meloni government: from July to September, 1,180 non-EU citizens left the country, only 16.5 percent of those who should have. In the period, in Italy — like Germany and Romania — all returns were classified as forced. In contrast, over 90 percent of returns were voluntary in Latvia, Lithuania, and Denmark. Based on Eurostat data, 56.5 percent of people who were returned voluntarily left the EU last summer, while 43.5 percent were forcibly returned.

There is an evident discrepancy between the main nationalities of those who are ‘banned’ from the territory of an EU country and those who leave.Most of the 112,000 removal orders concerned Algerians (9.5 percent), Moroccans (7.1 percent), Syrians (6.6 percent), Turks (5.7 percent), and Afghans (5 percent). However, most of the 27,740 returnees are citizens of Georgia (10.9 percent), Albania (7.3 percent), Turkey (7.2 percent), Colombia (6.1 percent), and Moldova (4.3 percent).

This summer, European countries also ordered 670 unaccompanied minors to leave their national territories. Three-quarters of them came from Afghanistan (215), Syria (160), and Somalia (120). The three countries have repressive regimes and bloody civil wars. Croatia, Sweden, Austria, and Cyprus repatriated 40 of them, including 15 to Syria, at the time still under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.