EU aims to send more personnel to Asia, Mideast and Africa

 On January 26, the European Union's ministers of migration met to examine visa limitations, improved coordination among member states, and ways to facilitate the repatriation to their home countries of more persons who do not have access to refuge in Europe.

Three years after the EU's 27 member states decided to restrict visas to nations that are not cooperating in returning their citizens, only Gambia was formally penalised.

Two EU officials claimed that while comparable actions were suggested by the EU's executive European Commission toward Senegal, Bangladesh, and Iraq, coordination with Dhaka over returning refugees has improved.

Eurostat figures, however, show that in 2021, the EU's overall percentage of effective returns remained at 21%. "This is threshold member states perceive to be unacceptably low," said one EU official.

Immigration is a very touchy political issue in the bloc. Instead of rekindling their bitter disputes over how to divide the obligation of caring for people who enter Europe, member countries would prefer to discuss increasing returns and decreasing irregular migration.

The Commission stated in a report for ministers that "establishing a common EU framework for returns, is a crucial pillar for well-functioning as credible migration and refugee programmes."

In 2022, approximately 160,000 individuals travelled across the Mediterranean to reach Europe, according to U.N. data. The principal path taken by migrants escaping violence and poverty in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia is this one. There were also reported to be nearly 8 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe.

Ministers will meet to talk about migration and ask for more people to be sent home two weeks before the 27 EU leaders gather in Brussels.

A draught of their joint statement stated that "swift efforts are needed to achieve successful returns by the European Union to countries that originated utilising as leverage all pertinent EU policies."

The Commission claims that the EU lacks the coordination and resources required to guarantee that any individual without a right to remain is expulsed or sent back to their country of origin.

It also mentioned problems with identifying and obtaining identity cards and travel documents, saying that "insufficient cooperation from countries of origin is an extra burden."

However, in the past, pressure from immigration chiefs to penalise some third countries with visa restrictions has clashed with or failed to achieve the goals of the EU's foreign and development ministers.