(13 March, 2025) On 11 March, 2025, the European Commission announced a new regulation to ease deportation of asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected as well as undocumented people within the EU.
The proposed regulation includes an EU return order – in other words, an order to leave one member state would equate an order to leave the EU entirely. It sets out common conditions for deportation centres - euphemistically called ‘return hubs’ - to be based outside the EU. This is similar to bilateral deals, such as those between the UK and Rwanda or Italy and Albania. These deals have been found to be illegal. The intention is also to increase detention length from 18 months to up to two years, with the exception of unaccompanied minors.
The regulation responds to EU governments’ demand to deal with undocumented migrants following far-right gains in last year’s EU elections.
It comes on the heels of the EU Talent Pool, currently being discussed in the European Parliament, which aims to facilitate the recruitment of non-EU workers in sectors with labour shortages, including health and social care. The Talent Pool has faced criticism from EPSU and sister labour organisations who say it’s designed to exclusively serve business interests and labour intermediaries, with no safeguards to guarantee equal treatment of workers and labour rights. The Talent Pool Regulation, as it stands, does nothing to prevent the commodification of workers.
Jan Willem Goudriaan, EPSU General Secretary, says: “If adopted, the new deportation plans will accelerate the past decade’s violations of the human right to seek and find asylum in the EU. They continue the frenzy of outsourcing ‘our’ responsibility to deal with asylum claims, while prolonging already unacceptable detention of human beings for no legitimate reasons, be it in or outside the EU.”
“It is bad enough that Von der Leyen II Commission is failing to deliver a social agenda to improve workers’ rights and living standards for this year. To buy into far-right dividing tactics between workers just makes it worse.”
The priority should be to establish safe, regular and sustainable pathways for people to come, live and work in Europe safely. This means – among others – strengthening trade union rights in both sending and receiving countries and expanding labour inspection services across the EU to protect all workers.
EPSU calls on progressive and democratic forces in the European Parliament - including the S&D, Greens, the Left, Renew and human rights supporters in the EPP - to oppose this harmful proposal. We also remind the EPP that maintaining a democratic cordon sanitaire against the far right means rejecting policies that fuel anti-migrant and anti-worker narratives, rather than legitimising them.
Finally, EPSU emphasises that labour shortages in national public administrations and other public services are a key factor leading to the irregular status of migrants, putting them in vulnerable and exploitative situations. Strengthening these services is essential to ensuring fair treatment and upholding fundamental rights.
Read the Commission’s proposal here.
Read the ETUC’s reaction here.
Find out more about EPSU’s work on migration here.
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