There is also pressure for the EU to strike fresh deals with countries on its periphery to limit migration, along the lines of a controversial €7.4 billion deal with Egypt or a €1 billion deal with Tunisia. Italy recently reopened diplomatic ties with Syria after a 12-year freeze as part of a bid to encourage Damascus to take back some of its citizens who fled during a bloody civil war. Rome is pushing other EU states to follow suit, though appetite seems limited for now.
The European Parliament is also set to mirror the tougher stance of EU countries, especially with right-wing groups having gained more leverage after June’s European election.
“We need an EU deportation mechanism to leverage trade and aid against countries that refuse to take back their citizens in a timely manner,” said Sweden’s Charlie Weimers of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).
Other areas where the Migration and Asylum Pact needs to be reinforced, Weimers said, include increasing the number of asylum-seeker reception centers in non-EU countries, funding for external border “barriers,” and a returns directive that “should enable rather than hinder member states in detaining illegals.”
In that sense, the ECR is close to the European People’s Party (EPP), the Parliament’s biggest faction. Ahead of the recent European election the EPP vowed to send asylum seekers to centers in third countries, double down on returns, and triple staff at the EU’s Frontex border agency, among other measures.
Several countries — as well as the Parliament — are now pushing the Commission to draft a fresh set of migration guidelines, allowing EU countries to use leverage to force countries to take their migrants back, for instance by withholding visas, linking returns to favorable access to the EU’s internal market, or suspending visa-free travel for diplomats.
The Commission proposed such a plan in 2018, but it never became law due to opposition from the European Parliament. The Parliament, however, is now a different place, with conservative and far-right forces controlling a larger number of seats.