MEPs have approved the opening of negotiations with the Council on a new EU returns framework that would tighten obligations on people ordered to leave the bloc, extend detention in some cases and allow returns to third countries under agreements with member states or the EU.
The European Parliament has cleared the way for negotiations with the Council on a revised EU returns regime, backing a legislative position that would make it easier for member states to transfer rejected asylum seekers and other third-country nationals without a right to stay to countries outside the European Union under so-called “return hubs”.
In a plenary vote on 26 March, Parliament agreed by 389 votes to 206, with 32 abstentions, to proceed to the next stage of the legislative process. The vote followed challenges from the S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left groups to decisions taken earlier this month in the Civil Liberties Committee. Rapporteur Malik Azmani of Renew Europe will lead Parliament’s negotiating team, and a first round of talks with the Council, under the Cyprus Presidency, is scheduled to take place shortly.
The file concerns a proposed overhaul of the EU’s common system for returning third-country nationals who are staying illegally in the bloc. The Commission tabled the proposal in March 2025, arguing that the Union needed a more coherent and enforceable system, including stronger obligations for returnees to cooperate, broader tools for national authorities to monitor compliance, and a clearer legal basis for agreements with third countries.
Under Parliament’s negotiating position, people subject to a return decision would be required to cooperate with national authorities throughout the process. MEPs also backed the wider use of a “European return order”, with decisions to be shared through the Schengen Information System so that return decisions and removal orders issued by one member state would be recognised and enforced across the Schengen area. Parliament’s press service said that, under the Commission proposal, all EU countries would have to recognise and enforce such decisions by 1 July 2027.
The most politically contentious element is the provision allowing returns to third countries that agree to accept a person under an arrangement concluded with a member state or with the EU. Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee expressly said that such agreements could include the so-called return hubs. The Commission, when it presented the draft law last year, said the new rules would make it legally possible for an EU country to make an agreement or arrangement for return with a third country, provided that international human rights standards and principles are respected.
Parliament’s text also hardens other parts of the system. According to the committee position now endorsed for negotiations, returnees could be detained for up to 24 months if they do not cooperate or present a risk of absconding. The text also provides for stricter treatment of people deemed to pose a security risk, including mandatory forced return in some cases and the possibility of permanent EU entry bans where an individual is considered a security threat. MEPs also backed alternatives to detention, including regular reporting, residence requirements, financial guarantees and electronic monitoring.
At the same time, Parliament removed one element from the Commission’s original draft. The Civil Liberties Committee said it deleted a provision that would have required member states to put in place measures to detect non-EU citizens staying illegally on their territory. Parliament also said independent monitoring should apply to the respect of fundamental rights during removal operations. Unaccompanied minors, under the committee position, could not be transferred under return-hub type agreements with third countries.
The vote underlines how migration policy is continuing to shift higher up the EU political agenda. Associated Press reported that right-wing parties secured passage of the measure with support from far-right groups, while parties of the left and centre opposed it. AP also reported that several countries, including Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark, have already entered into negotiations with governments, mainly in Africa, over possible sites for such facilities.
What Parliament approved last week does not itself create the final law. It gives MEP negotiators a mandate for trilogue talks with the Council, where the final shape of the regulation will be settled. For Brussels, the significance is twofold: the Union is moving towards a more centralised returns architecture, and one of the most controversial ideas in the migration debate, the externalisation of parts of the returns process, is now firmly inside the legislative mainstream.
