• Home /
• Outsourcing Borders: Monitoring EU externalisation policy /
• Bulletin 8 /
• Deportation and readmission

Deportation and readmission

EU should label “categories” of third countries as safe, Polish Presidency proposes /// Italy not responsible for ‘pullbacks’ to Libya, court rules /// “A return journey can be a new beginning”: Frontex holds second “reintegration” conference

EU should label “categories” of third countries as safe, Polish Presidency proposes

EU member states have begun discussing a proposal to establish an EU list of “safe countries of origin.” The list would make it possible to put asylum-seekers from so-called “safe” countries through accelerated asylum procedures with reduced safeguards, “on the basis that their claims are unlikely to be successful.”

A document circulated by the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU on 4 June (pdf) makes a first set of proposed amendments to the Commission’s proposal. The most substantial change is for the EU to be able to designate not just a particular country as “safe”, but a “category of third countries” as well.

There is no further explanation in the document as to what constitutes a “category” of countries, nor how that designation would be agreed. The Presidency maintains the Commission’s proposed list (pdf) of seven “safe” countries:

• Bangladesh
• Colombia
• Egypt
• India
• Kosovo
• Morocco
• Tunisia

In addition, all EU candidate countries are to be automatically considered as safe, unless certain circumstances change. The proposal will be subject to further discussion within the Council, and also has to be agreed with the European Parliament. Within the Council, it is being discussed in the Asylum Working Party.

Italy not responsible for ‘pullbacks’ to Libya, court rules

On 20 May, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a case regarding a 2017 ‘pullback’ operation by the so-called Libyan coast guard was inadmissible. The applicants to the court had argued that Italy exercised extraterritorial jurisdiction due to its funding and technical support for the Libyan authorities.

As the de:border collective, one of the organisations that helped bring the case, put it:

“[The court stated] that the financial and technical support provided by Italy to the Libyan Government of National Accord under bilateral agreements was not such as to lead the Court to presume that the Libyan authorities were dependent to such a degree that the international maritime area off the Libyan coast was under the effective control and decisive influence of Italy—contrary to findings from the Italian judiciary that Libyan Coastguard interventions in the Central Mediterranean happen ‘under the aegis of the Italian navy’.”

Violeta Moreno-Lax of the de:border collective said that the pullback policy:

“…is an artifice specifically designed as a mechanism to evade human rights responsibility, while still maintaining a form of ‘contactless control’ over migrants and refugees attempting to reach safety by sea. It constitutes a form of ‘refoulement by proxy’ that contravenes the most essential foundations of the Convention system and that this judgment will apparently allow to continue”.”

“A return journey can be a new beginning”: Frontex holds second “reintegration” conference

In June, Frontex hosted its second annual Reintegration Conference in Rotterdam. A news article published by the agency said: “Reintegration means helping returnees rebuild their lives back home, whether it’s support to find housing, launch a business, or access healthcare or training. It’s about turning return into a real opportunity.”

The conference demonstrates the agency’s growing role in implementing the EU’s reintegration policies, a topic explored in a previous Statewatch analysis, and news articles in January and February.