STOCKHOLM
\nEU interior ministers reached \u201cconsensus\u201d Thursday to warn outside countries refusing to take back irregular migrants they risked tighter visa restrictions to Europe, Sweden\u2019s migration minister said.
\nMinisters agreed that the tool, in place since 2020, \u201cshould be fully used\u201d to boost the number of migrants returning to their home countries after their asylum applications failed, Maria Malmer Stenergard told journalists.
\nSweden chaired the Stockholm meeting as it currently holds the EU presidency.
\n\u201cShould intensified political and diplomatic efforts not produce the desired results, member states call on the (European) Commission to come back to the (European) Council with proposals on visa restrictions,\u201d Malmer Stenergard said.
\nThat tougher line was reflected in a letter Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen sent to leaders of EU countries on Thursday, ahead of a February 9-10 summit that will discuss the issue.
\nVon der Leyen said EU member states could sign up to a pilot scheme over the first half of this year to speed up screening and asylum procedures for eligible migrants \u2014 and \u201cimmediate return\u201d for those not deemed to qualify.
\nShe also said she wanted the EU to draw up a list of \u201csafe countries of origin,\u201d and for the bloc to strengthen border monitoring on the Mediterranean and Western Balkans routes migrants use to get to Europe.
\nThe EU planned to put in place migration deals with countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria \u201cto improve returns… and to prevent departures,\u201d said Von der Leyen.
\nIn Stockholm, EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson stressed that many European Union countries were under \u201chuge pressure,\u201d receiving nearly one million asylum applications last year.
\nCapacity was further stretched by the EU hosting nearly four million Ukrainian refugees who had fled Russia\u2019s war in their country, she said.
\nEuropean Commission statistics show a low rate of effective returns.
\nIn 2021, out of 340,500 orders for migrants to be returned to their countries of origin, only 21 percent were carried out.
\nThe EU funds various reintegration programs in countries that readmit their citizens who have been denied asylum in Europe.
\nThese are separate from deportations or forced returns based on a court or administrative order, which are often carried out under escort and typically do not include in-country assistance.
\nSweden \u2014 whose government relies on a far-right party, the Sweden Democrats, to stay in power \u2014 wants EU countries to leverage visas, foreign policy and development aid to press outside countries on the returns issue.
\nSo far, the EU has applied the visa-restriction tool against only one country: The Gambia, for whose citizens getting a Schengen visa is more difficult and costly.
\nThe commission in 2021 proposed the mechanism be extended to Bangladesh and Iraq, but that has not happened.
\nJohansson said after a November visit to Bangladesh that the threat of the visa sanctions had prompted Dhaka to become more \u201cpolitically open\u201d to accepting irregular migrants back from Europe.
\nThe overall tone on migration has hardened in Europe since 2015-2016, when it took in over a million asylum-seekers, most of them Syrians fleeing the war in their country.
\nThe bloc in 2016 struck a deal with Turkiye to prevent much of the onward passage of irregular migrants into Europe.
\nAustria backs the strengthening of a fence built along the border of EU member Bulgaria with Turkiye to further reduce the flow of asylum-seekers.
\nAustrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Monday, during a visit to that border region, that the fence would cost around two billion euros, and called on the European Commission to fund it.
\nThe commission has been reluctant to do that, emphasising instead the role of Frontex, the bloc\u2019s border patrol agency, which EU member states can call on.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s about strengthening the fence that is there,\u201d Nehammer told reporters in Vienna on Thursday.
\n\u201cThe commission categorically says, \u2018No, there is no money for fences\u2019. That can\u2019t be the final word\u201d on this issue, he added.
\nThe current system to manage asylum and the visa-free Schengen zone had failed, he insisted.
\nJohansson said she objected to the fence proposal on financial grounds, pointing out that the European Council representing member states had cut her department\u2019s budget for the 2021-2027 cycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STOCKHOLM EU interior ministers reached \u201cconsensus\u201d Thursday to warn outside countries refusing to take back irregular migrants they risked tighter visa restrictions to Europe, Sweden\u2019s migration minister said. Ministers agreed that the tool, in place since 2020, \u201cshould be fully used\u201d to boost the number of migrants returning to their home countries after their asylum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-310160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n