On March 26, 2026, to parliamentarians’ applause and social media celebrations, the European Parliament approved new return regulations intended to speed up deportations for rejected asylum seekers and allow the creation of offshore detention centres.
The UK had already tried, and failed, to implement a similar policy with Rwanda. The two countries are now in court as Rwanda seeks over £100 million in compensation after the deal was cancelled. This raises the obvious question: Why would the EU choose to follow in the footsteps of a policy that failed and that left two Commonwealth countries locked in a legal dispute?
Perhaps the EU will manage to implement this regulation more efficiently at a bureaucratic level. The EUAA has, after all, been offering ‘technical support’ in the management of detention centres for some time now. But, even if the machinery can be made to work, another question remains: Why the glee?
When I witnessed the footage unfold on my mobile phone, I experienced a range of emotions, above all sadness.
The state has a function to fulfil here, yet, deportations are a delicate matter and human rights must remain central to how this function is exercised. If deportations are to be effective, there must be better coordination. And if the state is to deport migrants, it should do so within a short period of time, not after 15 months or more, as is currently happening in Malta.
At the same time, effectiveness cannot become an excuse for haste. What matters is a proper balance between the right to seek asylum, the right to be heard and the need for a swift decision.
Move too slowly and justice is delayed. Move too quickly and justice can be denied. Malta has already seen the danger of accelerated procedures when a Bangladeshi journalist had his asylum application rejected three times through accelerated procedures. He was only saved through the bold legal intervention of Aditus at the European Court of Human Rights.
It may sound naive to speak of human rights in the world as it stands today. Yet, even if political institutions dismantle the full charter adopted by most UN member states in 1948, human rights do not disappear. They endure because human dignity endures, beyond laws, regulations, policies or directives that violate it.
That is why the applause in the European Parliament was so jarring. It suggested not seriousness but something closer to political satisfaction.
What kind of EU is now taking shape?- Mario Gerada
And that satisfaction brought to mind what French theorist René Girard described in his reflections on scapegoating. He saw in spectacles such as bullfighting a ritual through which a community briefly relieves its tensions by directing them towards a victim, rather than confronting its own internal rivalries and violence.
The relief, however, never lasts. The underlying conflict remains unresolved, frustration soon returns and another scapegoat is needed.
This is exactly how the applause felt like. Having worked in the field of migration for many years, I know how asylum seekers are used and abused by politicians in their struggles for power. These are struggles rooted in rivalry, fear and internal violence. The resemblance was painfully clear.
The sense of alarm was echoed last month by the Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of the European Union (COMECE), of which Malta forms part. In a press release, the bishops expressed deep concern over these regulations.
For them, the vote reflected a deeper crisis of identity within the EU, a retreat from its foundational values.
The bishops called on the EU to remember that justice and compassion must be reaffirmed if it is to remain faithful to its original mission. That, in the end, is the larger issue.
What kind of EU is now taking shape? One that defends an aggressive free market at home and abroad; one increasingly shaped by war even as it moves towards further enlargement; one trying to navigate overlapping crises, from Greenland to Iran and from the failures of Brexit to its own internal fractures?
Or can the EU still choose to pursue peace by peaceful means, rather than remain trapped in cycles of force, fear and exclusion?
The question is ultimately one of identity or, perhaps, identities. If Europe begins to celebrate deportation as political theatre, then it risks becoming something very different from what it once claimed to be. And once that moral retreat is applauded, it becomes easier to repeat, easier to expand and harder to resist.
As Girard said in 2002: “We are aware that globalisation doesn’t mean global friendship but global competition and, therefore, conflict. That doesn’t mean we will all destroy each other but it is no happy global village, either.”
Mario Gerada is Head of Advocacy, Outreach and Pastoral at the Migrants Commission, Archdiocese of Malta.