Parliament gives the green light to the return regulation; the People’s Party and the far right join forces

Strasbourg, by our correspondent – “Today Europe delivered.” This was the view expressed by Malik Azmani, a Dutch MEP from the Renew Group and the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the Return Regulation. “While we have secured Europe’s main entrance with the Pact on Migration and Asylum, we have now also protected the back door,” he stated during the press conference following the plenary vote. Today (17 June), MEPs approved the Return Regulation with 418 votes in favour, 218 against, and 30 abstentions. 

The regulation follows on from the Pact on Migration and Asylum, which entered into force on 12 June. It aims to harmonise national practices which, within the framework of the Return Directive (Directive 2008/115/CE), had gradually diverged. Both the Commission and the European Parliament have emphasised that, at the European level, only 20 per cent of returns are actually carried out. The regulation therefore provides a new legal framework for the return of third-country nationals whose stay in the Union is irregular.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in a letter sent to European heads of state and government ahead of this week’s European Council, hailed the return regulation as “another historic milestone” that allows us to “turn the page on a twenty-year-old system”. The President pointed out, however, that the crackdown on returns does not constitute the entirety of European migration policy and that the EU must continue to attract “global talent”.

Under the new rules, anyone subject to a return order is obliged to leave the territory and to cooperate with the authorities. Failure to do so may result in detention for up to 24 months, with the possibility of an extension. The regulation also opens up the possibility of transferring migrants to centres located outside the EU, in third countries willing to receive them on the basis of bilateral agreements, following the model of Italian centres in Albania. 

Reactions from those in favour of the regulation were not long in coming. As early as yesterday, the day before the vote, the MEP for Fratelli d’Italia and co-chair of the ECR Group, Nicola Procaccini, had expressed optimism about the outcome. “The regulation ensures that repatriation is not just a theoretical concept,” he told Eunews, “because all obstacles of various kinds will be removed, creating an effective and efficient system.” This will make it possible, he added, “to do what has never been done before, namely to manage the phenomenon of migration by promoting legal migration. Member States will therefore be able to open their doors to those they wish to welcome—those who are genuinely entitled to do so.” 

Francesco Torselli, a Member of the European Parliament for Fratelli d’Italia, also defended the measure during a press conference, citing figures from the European Commission: “To date, only 20 per cent of people present irregularly on European territory and subject to an expulsion order actually return home. This is not a figure that can be accepted.” Furthermore, he explained, “the Commission tells us that 90 per cent of those who enter Europe irregularly do so by relying on organised crime, which generates 4 billion and 700 million a year for organised crime.” The MEP admitted that he did not know whether “hubs in third countries or return centres are the best solutions, but they are solutions worth pursuing, because what we have done so far has led to a situation which, in my view, is dramatic.” 

Procaccini attributed the negative figures to the migration policies of recent years. “We’ve had to make up for years and years of delays caused by the left, which pursued a policy of unrestricted immigration.” He also highlighted the role of the Italian government, which “has set the direction for European policies.” 

The Patriots are also celebrating. Paolo Borchia, a Lega MEP and the party’s head of delegation in Strasbourg (Patriots for Europe group), described the text as “an important step, even if it is not quite what we had hoped for.” Members of the delegation explained that the party would like to see “even more effective tools to compel third countries to take back returnees, for example through financial policy.” To put it more bluntly, “if they do not take back the migrants, all funding, development and cooperation grants will be cut off.” Furthermore, the Lega is pushing “for thorough age checks on people entering Italy, to verify that minors are indeed minors.” Finally, Borchia looked to the future with confidence, saying that “this Parliament effectively has a centre-right majority. “We hope,” he added, “that this is not an isolated measure, but the first step towards realigning this majority with what the voters asked of us two years ago.”

Looking at the opposition, the tone and sentiment are quite different. The Democratic Party’s delegation to the European Parliament has strongly criticised the decision “to trade the rights of the most vulnerable for the illusion of greater security. “The measures set out in the new Return Regulation are nothing short of deportation practices that take no account of the protection of people’s rights.” Furthermore, the PD MEPs pointed the finger at the European People’s Party, who “have decided, yet again, to vote alongside the far right.” The reality, they added, “is that this whole exercise will bring about neither harmonisation nor greater security. It will merely make us even more vulnerable to blackmail by those countries to which we will outsource the management of an issue that must be tackled seriously, not with propaganda.”

Pasquale Tridico, MEP for the Five Star Movement and former president of the INPS, head of the M5S delegation in Strasbourg, was also critical. In a meeting with Italian journalists, organised the day before the vote, he explained that “the measure is of dubious legitimacy from a human rights perspective and dangerous in terms of the costs the state will have to bear.” According to the MEP, “there has been a misguided policy, both at national and European level, starting with the centres in Albania, which are now defined as possible in third countries.” Furthermore, “Albania may soon no longer be considered a third country. Not to mention the costs—money taken from the state coffers without having any real impact on the phenomenon of migrant flows.” The Five Star Movement went on to point out that “extending the maximum detention periods for migrants to 30 months will inevitably lead to a significant increase in costs borne by transit countries such as Italy, whereas what our country really needs is the suspension of the Dublin Regulation, which assigns responsibility for reception and asylum procedures to the Member State of first arrival.”

Mélissa Camara, a French MEP for the Greens, also expressed similar views, saying that “the European Parliament, led by an EPP and far-right majority, has committed the unforgivable and historic error of abandoning the rights and dignity of people in exile by approving a text driven by a single principle: xenophobia.” The MEP also announced that “the regulation will be challenged in national courts and before the Court of Justice of the European Union, on the grounds of a breach of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as of EU and international treaties.”

Finally, according to Camara, the practices that will be permitted will be “no less degrading and inhumane than those of ICE in the United States.” A similar comparison was also drawn by Cecilia Strada (PD), who, speaking to Eunews, accused the EU of “failing to protect people’s rights” and of accepting behaviour that “was heavily criticised” when it took place in the US.