The EU countries want to press the pace at the sharper asylum course – just like Interior Minister Dobrindt. At the current meeting of the interior ministers there are some suggestions for discussion. The core: outsourcing to third countries.
It is Alexander Dobrindt’s first appearance in the district of all EU Minister of the Interior. He will have to explain the German border controls there again. Above all, he wants to show in Copenhagen that “Germany no longer sits in the braking house at migration issues in Europe, but in the locomotive”. The German Interior Minister had already declared this at the Migration Summit on the Zugspitze at the end of last week.
On the Zugspitze, EU interior commissioner Magnus Brunner was also there – and his direction of march was also clear: “Europe is finally becoming tougher in questions of asylum policy. This is the decisive factor: we can only solve these challenges together – not everyone in themselves, not everyone.”
Brunner also reminds that much of what was vehemently demanded on the Zugspitze has long since been pushed by the EU Commission. Plans that go beyond the agreed asylum and migration reform (GEAS), which is due to fully grab in the summer of 2026.
Germany pushes to Afghanistan, Austria to Syria
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Today in Copenhagen should be advised further. For example, “when it comes to deportations and returns, where we have recently created new opportunities,” said Brunner. Austria – his home country – most recently deported towards Syria, Germany towards Afghanistan. “These are all enormously important steps for us if we can bring off criminals more to their countries of origin,” he emphasized.
The EU Commission presented a new return guideline for this in March. Among other things, it is about a stricter and EU-unit deportation. And so -called “return hubs”, i.e. return centers in which the deportation of rejected asylum seekers are to be coordinated – also outside the EU and under the supervision of national authorities, together with EU agencies such as Frontex.
In the future, the border protection agency should receive three times as many funds, says Interior Commissioner Brunner. According to the budget proposal, which Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen presented last week, 34 billion euros in migration management, strengthening the EU external borders and internal security will flow into the future.
Only every fourth Liable to leave leaves the EU
But even then the question also arises: where can more people be returned?
Most recently, there were around 2,700 asylum applications per day, according to the EU Asylagentur. Almost half are therefore rejected directly, but currently only about every four of these people who are obliged to leave the European Union actually leave.
Denmark currently has the EU Council Presidency and has been a hardliner in terms of migration policy for a long time. Kaare Dybvad, the Danish Minister of Migration, wants to make pace: “We have to do more than only third countries to convince to take back their own nationals. We urgently need to work on other new solutions.”
Focus on agreements with third countries
A proposal that is also particularly important to the German Minister of the Interior is: delete the so -called connection element. This means that so far, asylum seekers may only be deported to a country outside the EU, in which they have spent families or a longer stay. “We no longer want to maintain the connection element so that it is not prevented by European law that we can find an agreement with third countries,” said Dobrindt. Protection by the EU does not necessarily mean protection in the EU.
In Dobrindt’s example, this was as follows: For certain reasons, a rejected asylum seeker cannot be deported to Afghanistan – why not then to Pakistan? To do this, the country would have to be on the list of safe third countries. The EU Commission has already presented one and wants to continue discussing it with Parliament and, for example, the inner ministers, said Brunner.
“These are all very important measures, and here we have to get faster,” explains the EU Commissioner. It is about making them effective and presenting the credibility of European asylum policy.
Difficult conversations too Migration agreement
EU Commissioner Brunner has just experienced how difficult this is in practice. From Libya, a particularly large number of people are currently starting their journey across the Mediterranean – especially on the Greek islands. Brunner’s first talks in Libya about a migration agreement initially ended abruptly: In the country torn by unrest and power struggles, the EU delegation was declared “undesirable”.
Europe was shown the next challenge: With all the effort to outsource the “migration problem” into other countries, one increasingly depends on the will of the counterpart.
