Five European Union countries are seeking an agreement with a country outside the bloc to receive migrants who have no legal right to remain in the EU, as Denmark targets the end of 2027 for the first transfers. Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark and the Netherlands agreed on steps towards establishing so-called return hubs.
The five governments, which refer to themselves as the Group of Five, want to reach an agreement with at least one partner country before the end of 2026.
Ministers meeting in Copenhagen on Friday did not identify a prospective host.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the governments wanted an agreement with third countries this year that would allow them to establish return hubs. The ministers plan another meeting in Munich at the end of September.
Danish Immigration and Integration Minister Morten Bødskov said the group expected to have a common understanding with a partner country around the New Year. Denmark aims to start transferring people to such a facility by the end of 2027.
The planned centres would receive people who have no right to stay in the EU but who are not being returned to their countries of origin. Bødskov rejected descriptions of the proposed facilities as camps and said residents would have opportunities to live and work in the partner country.
“It’s a new chance to have a life in a partner country,” Bødskov told reporters in Copenhagen.
The identity of that partner remains under negotiation.
The initiative follows changes to EU migration rules. The European Parliament approved legislation in June aimed at accelerating returns and providing a legal basis for member states to establish return facilities outside the EU.
The proposal has drawn scrutiny over the treatment of people transferred beyond EU territory. The Council of Europe warned in July that return hubs posed “considerable human rights risks”.
Amnesty International warned that facilities outside the EU risk becoming “cruel black holes” for human rights.
Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty’s European Institutions Office, said the model carried risks including arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and forced onward returns. The organisation said it was concerned by reported negotiations involving Uganda and Rwanda, citing its documentation of rights abuses in both countries.
Amnesty argued that transferring responsibility for migrants to states outside Europe would shift pressure onto countries with fewer resources and said past outsourcing schemes had exposed people to restrictions on due process and protection from refoulement.
The Centre for European Policy Studies has also questioned whether return hubs would achieve their stated purpose, arguing that they risk becoming long-term detention sites for people who still cannot be sent to their countries of origin.
CEPS said the new EU Return Regulation broadens the definition of a country of return by allowing member states to transfer people to third countries with which they have no previous connection, provided those countries agree to receive them.
The Brussels-based think tank criticised the use of non-binding arrangements with partner countries, saying such deals could reduce parliamentary and judicial scrutiny. It pointed to previous offshore migration schemes, including Italy’s centres in Albania and Australia’s offshore system, as examples of costly programmes that faced legal challenges and produced limited evidence of lasting deterrence.
CEPS also raised concerns over EU legislation under which families with children are no longer expressly excluded from return hubs, while only unaccompanied minors remain outside the scheme.
Dutch Migration Minister Bart van den Brink said the governments intended to protect human rights under the proposed system.
Bødskov said the International Organization for Migration and the UN refugee agency would take part in the next stages of the work. Reuters reported that a UNHCR spokesperson said the agency had not received details of the proposal and was therefore unable to comment on the arrangements under discussion.
Finland prepares for EU return rules
Finland is also preparing for the EU’s new return framework and has begun examining the return hub model with other Nordic countries.
Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said in June that preliminary work had started, while the Ministry of the Interior has since launched a legislative project to align Finnish law with the EU Return Regulation. The plans include longer detention periods during return procedures and longer fixed-term entry bans, while the return hub provisions are set to apply directly at EU level.
Finland has not identified a host country, but Rantanen has said future centres should focus on cases where deportations are difficult to enforce.
The government is also expanding migrant screening under the EU Migration and Asylum Pact through a €2.55 million project led by the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service, which will develop systems for security checks on people arriving in the country.
HT