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 obli...