“Send them back”: European Parliament Vote Indicates Major Mood Shift on Migration

The Return Regulation

The Regulation, according to the approved text, establishes a common European system for returning third-country nationals illegally present in the member states.

The system will include such measures as a “common procedure for return”, involving cooperation with third countries in establishing so-called return hubs, as well as enhanced cooperation between member states and the possibility of detention and other deterrent measures to guarantee compliance with removal orders.

The Regulation’s approval and the sizable support it achieved mark a shift in the understanding of migration in Europe and in the range of responses considered appropriate.

Commenting on yesterday’s result, the EPP negotiator on the law, François-Xavier Bellamy MEP, acknowledged the change in attitudes, saying “this is a turning point”.

“After decades of failure and years of deadlock, Europe is ending its powerlessness in the face of illegal immigration. 

“This Regulation gives member states the possibility of establishing return centers outside Europe and removes one of the main obstacles to effective returns: the refusal of some countries to take back their own nationals", he said.

The EPP Group is the largest political group in the European Parliament, with 185 members from every member state. It is primarily composed of parties and politicians that traditionally would have been described as centrist or center-right. However, many, such as Germany’s Christian Democratic Union or Ireland’s Fine Gael, presided over large waves of inward migration into their countries.

Right-wing groups hailed the result as “a historic victory for common sense” and similarly as a “turning point in Europe’s migration policy”.

ECR Vice-Chair Charlie Weimers MEP echoed a line used by right-wing groups and parties in relation to the Regulation, saying “illegal migrants must understand: you will never make Europe your home”.

Commenting on the Regulation’s potential, Weimers said that it will now be possible to “build big return hubs in third countries”. 

“We can enforce unlimited entry bans not just for serious criminals, but low-level criminals too, and detain criminals for as long as necessary", he said.

https://twitter.com/ecrgroup/status/2067199531561734346

Meanwhile, in a statement released by The Left in the European Parliament, the group decried what it said would amount to “ICE-style raids in Europe”.

“The Return Regulation dictated by the heirs of Nazism has been approved by the unholy coalition of the EPP and the far right, with the complicity of the liberals”, the group said, adding that the Return Regulation will “undermine all the values that the EU claims to defend, but will also violate human dignity”.

The group ended its statement with a call for civil society to “join the resistance” against what it described as “racist” and “xenophobic” policies.

A Decade of Change

The Left Group’s objections to the trend toward immigration enforcement are in keeping with the migration debate about a decade ago in Europe, when the conversation focused more heavily on obligations to asylum seekers and refugees. While those considerations remain present in European politics, they are no longer the only ones, with the conversation shifting to how immigration laws can be enforced within the bounds of human rights law.

The growing support for right-wing parties in Europe, in large part as a result of perceived poor immigration management, has forced centrist parties to adopt a tougher line on immigration, as evidenced by the rhetoric from the EPP Group in particular.

This shift is exemplified by European institutions' opposition to the United Kingdom's Rwanda scheme, proposed by successive Conservative governments, which would have seen asylum seekers relocated to Rwanda.

In 2024, the then Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty said that the adoption of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill by the UK Parliament "raises major issues about the human rights of asylum seekers and the rule of law more generally”.

While the policies differ in their details, the principle of relocating asylum seekers and migrants to third countries has gained traction in Europe. The shift reflects changing public attitudes toward migration across the Union.