Returns and Safe Third Countries: Updates and Challenges of the EU Migration Agreement

Translated by Martina Marino

On December 8, the Council of the European Union reached a preliminary agreement on returns and expanded the list of so-called “safe third countries,” aiming to “accelerate and simplify the return procedures for people whose stay in Member States is irregular.” These are reforms made to the Pact on Migration and Asylum, adopted in June 2024 and set to be applied from June 2026. The text, which was opposed by France, Spain, Greece, and Portugal, will now go to the European Parliament for final approval.

The regulation establishes shared return procedures at the EU level, provides tools for solidarity and cooperation among Member States, and imposes stricter obligations on those not entitled to stay, tightening controls: in the words of the Danish Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rasmus Stoklund, “Member States will have a significantly better toolkit: for example, longer detention periods and entry bans are planned.”

Additionally, the text defines “safe country of origin” and opens the possibility to create return centers in extra-European third countries managed and funded by Europe, exactly like the detention centers in Albania proposed by Italy, currently blocked by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ruling of August 1, 2025), but which, with the approval of this agreement, would instead be a plausible model.

Regarding solidarity tools, the main objective is to assist countries considered “under migratory pressure” from June 2026, such as Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Greece: these will be entitled to receive contributions from other European states in the form of financial aid (with a fund of 420 million euros), a relocation plan (21,000), or alternative solidarity measures. Each state can choose which measure to adopt, even in combination.

Cooperation among states is encouraged through mutual recognition of return decisions: each Member State will have the right to directly execute a return decision issued by another state for its territory, without having to issue its own return decision. In this way, the Council statement says, a strong message is sent to citizens with irregular residence: “they will not be able to avoid return by fleeing to another Member State.” This measure is not mandatory at the moment but could become so if the European Commission positively evaluates its operation within two years from the Pact’s entry into force.

With the agreement, the following countries become considered safe countries of origin: Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia, Colombia, India, Kosovo, and Morocco (Italy strongly pushed for the first three to be included on the list because most of its asylum seekers come from these countries). The criterion for the definition is statistical: all countries from which less than 20% of asylum applications originate are considered “safe.” However, this approach neglects the fundamental evaluation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in these countries, and the proposed definition conflicts with European fundamental rights conventions and the regulation itself, which require verifying that safe countries are democratic and respect people’s fundamental rights. A dispute has already been opened at the European Court of Justice, and if Parliament approves this definition, legal challenges are likely to increase.

The application of the “safe country” concept can occur in three cases: if the person comes from them, if they have transited through them, or if there is an agreement with the country. In the first case, accelerated procedures for examining the asylum application will be applied, as already happens in Italy after the 2023 Cutro decree. In the other two cases, procedures could be entrusted to third countries, but this sharply contrasts with the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees, which requires asylum applications to be examined directly by the states where they are submitted.

Further dereponsabilization would derive from the establishment of return hubs, the return centers, which “can serve both as centers for the subsequent return to the final return country and as the final destination.” The Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASGI), in a statement highlighting the agreement’s critical issues and dangers, denounces this outsourcing proposal because with it “Member States deliberately choose to evade the international obligations they committed to,” and raises alarms about the serious risk of compromising the centrality of individual protection and the effectiveness of the right to asylum in Europe.

According to lawyer and president of the ICS of Trieste Gianfranco Schiavone, although approving the proposal would mean “treating people as if they were goods,” violating fundamental rights and conventions, it is unfortunately likely that Parliament will vote in favor of this plan.

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