A growing number of European Union countries have pushed for the bloc to shift its policy on migration further to the right, with a summit of the 27 national leaders discussing proposals to make it easier to deport asylum seekers whose claims had been rejected.
A large number of leaders insisted more had to be done to cope with the numbers of asylum seekers arriving in Europe, during the European Council summit in Brussels. The Netherlands, Italy, Denmark and Poland were among a group of countries pushing for the EU to introduce stronger rules around the deportation of rejected asylum seekers.
The summit discussed a possible plan to set up deportation sites in countries outside the EU, where asylum seekers would be sent after their claim was rejected but before they could be returned to their home country. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told leaders she would examine the policy for what are termed “return hubs”.
Speaking on his way into the meeting, Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof confirmed his government was considering the idea of sending rejected asylum seekers to Uganda. However, a Dutch official said the proposal was at a very preliminary stage. The new right-wing coalition, which includes Geert Wilders’s far-right Freedom Party has been pushing to take a much harder line on asylum policy.
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During the summit meeting Alexander De Croo, the liberal Belgian prime minister, questioned whether return hubs were an efficient way of tackling migration, according to one source. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister for Greece, said there was a need for a new EU-wide law around deportations, which would be the “missing link” in the bloc’s recent overhaul of migration policy passed earlier this year.
Several countries called for elements of the reforms, known as the migration and asylum pact, to come into force earlier than mid-2026 as initially planned. The reforms will make it easier for countries to fast-track decisions on asylum cases and give authorities powers to detain asylum seekers at borders. The pact was passed into EU law in May but has done little to quell growing support for far-right parties campaigning on anti-immigrant platforms in many countries.
Germany recently imposed checks on all its borders in an attempt to reduce irregular migration, while Polish prime minister Donald Tusk announced he planned to temporarily bar people crossing its border from Belarus and claiming asylum.
It is understood Mr Tusk opened up the discussion on migration at the EU summit and defended his recent decision, which he said was necessary to guard Poland’s border against the weaponisation of migration flows. Mr Tusk made the case that Russia and Belarus were pushing migrants across their borders into the EU, as a form of hybrid warfare to destabilise European democracies.
Earlier on Thursday, prime minister of Finland Petteri Orpo publicly backed Mr Tusk’s approach, noting that Finland had closed off its borders with Russia last year for the same reasons.
In a statement agreed at the end of the summit on Thursday night, the leaders called for the commission to bring forward a new legislative proposal to help increase and speed up deportations from EU countries “as a matter of urgency”. The statement said Russia and Belarus could not be allowed to abuse European values, “including the right to asylum”, to undermine EU countries. “The European Council expresses its solidarity with member states facing these challenges. Exceptional situations require appropriate measures,” it said.
Speaking at a press conference afterwards, Dr von der Leyen said the commission was planning a new draft EU law covering returns policy.
The situation on the Polish border with Belarus was “completely different” to the broader discussion on migration, the German politician said. “[Vladimir] Putin and [Alexander] Lukashenko are exerting pressure on us, trying to undermine our security and territorial integrity. These are hybrid attacks by state actors,” she said.
“Poland and other member states need to be able to protect our union from these hybrid attacks, same goes for Finland and the Baltic states. They have to be able to take measures that are temporary and appropriate,” she said.
The commission president said she believed legal advice outlined if border restrictions were temporary and warranted in response to actions from state actors, they did not breach international asylum obligations.
The EU summit also discussed the conflict in the Middle East, where there was broad agreement to repeat calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon and condemn recent Israeli attacks on United Nations peacekeeping troops.
There was a sense that some leaders’ attitudes about Israel were shifting over concerns its military actions were increasingly unacceptable, according to one EU source inside the closed-door meeting. During one intervention Taoiseach Simon Harris asked other leaders what the tipping point would be and what had to happen for Israel to listen to its allies. The Fine Gael leader reiterated a call made by Ireland and Spain that the EU should review its trade agreement with Israel, in light of human rights violations during the war in Gaza.
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