Fortress Europe, beyond Dublin: how European immigration rules are changing
According to the latest Eurostat figures, the EU welcomed 4.2 million foreign nationals in 2024. This is a huge figure when one considers that asylum seekers and/or refugees from Ukraine under temporary protection are excluded from the tally: it is anachronistic to still believe that migration flows of this magnitude can be halted by restrictive policies.
The problem of irregular immigration
However, the issue of immigration brings with it problems that one political camp has been exploiting for years, whilst another political camp often tends to underestimate them. Irregular immigration poses a threat to internal security within the Schengen area, and human trafficking is a practice that severely violates migrants’ rights; yet governments often respond with a security-focused approach that seeks to blame the victims, without offering concrete solutions to those fleeing crisis situations. The number of people found to be residing irregularly in the EU in 2025 stands at around 720,000, but the actual figure is estimated to be much higher.
Whilst in Italy, incidentally, there was talk of ‘remigration’, on 12 June the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum, launched by the European Commission in May 2024, came into force. This is the first structural reform since the Dublin III agreements of 2013 and appears to be aimed at making it more difficult for irregular migrants to remain on European territory.
The new Pact and moving beyond Dublin III
Easing the migratory pressure on border countries has been at the heart of the political debate in recent years and of the amendments made to the Dublin III Regulation, which stipulated that asylum applications should be processed by the country of first arrival (in around 50 per cent of cases, Italy, Spain and Greece). One of the new measures introduced by the new Pact is precisely the establishment of a solidarity mechanism between countries for the redistribution of asylum seekers: all EU Member States will now, in certain cases, have to decide whether to help reduce migratory pressure on countries of first arrival by accepting a quota of migrants on their territory, or to provide both operational and financial assistance to the countries facing the greatest difficulties.
Provision is also made for the establishment of a fund to finance not only national agencies, but also, where appropriate, those in the countries of origin. It is precisely this last point that has provoked strong reactions from human rights organisations: the fear is that shared European resources will end up funding, albeit indirectly, practices that infringe on the rights of migrants, thereby legitimising the systematic violations that occur on a daily basis in Libyan, Egyptian and Tunisian detention centres.
Deportation orders and actual returns
Across the EU, in the last year alone, around 490,000 formal removal orders were issued against non-EU nationals who were not granted the right to asylum. Of these, only 135,000 were actually deported, representing a significant increase compared with 2024, but the repatriation rate still stands at less than 30 per cent of the total.
The objectives of European reform
Overcoming the automatic mechanisms of the Dublin III Regulation – which have so far placed a disproportionate burden on countries of first arrival – and the need to increase returns are the two real driving forces behind this European reform, which comes after years of negotiations. The stated aim of the European institutions is to improve the joint management of policies on migration flows and the right to asylum, and to ensure a balance between the needs of Member States and the protection of migrants’ rights.
The new asylum procedures and the EURODAC system
To this end, the Pact first and foremost introduces a substantial change to asylum application procedures, adding an accelerated procedure to the standard procedure; this can take place at the border and should be concluded within a maximum of 12 weeks. As well as setting common standards to harmonise reception and assistance across the Union, the reform aims to foster closer cooperation between national agencies, centred on the sharing of biometric data via the EURODAC system. This digital framework has, however, reignited concerns amongst human rights organisations: they are calling for immediate clarity on safeguards and on the independent monitoring of border and removal procedures.
The operational challenges of repatriation
It is on the issue of repatriation, however, that national governments face the challenge of deporting those residing illegally in the country, particularly those arriving without documents, for both operational and political reasons: the countries most affected by the migration crisis are struggling to set up border centres and improve reception conditions at short notice; there is a shortage of qualified staff; and diplomatic agreements with certain non-EU countries remain weak.
Administrative detention and return hubs in third countries
There are two main changes regarding return centres: the first is that the period of administrative detention in the centres is to be extended to a maximum of 30 months (although the data show that extending these periods restricts personal freedom without having any positive effect on the number of returns); the second comes just a few days before the Pact enters into force, following the European Parliament’s approval on 17 June of a new Return Regulation.
Whilst the Pact did not originally provide for the possibility of establishing reception and return centres in non-EU countries to manage migration flows outside European borders, one of the Italian government’s key priorities (“the centres in Albania will work”, and now they might actually start operating), the 2026 Return Regulation – which, in this sense, is one of the final pieces of the Migration and Asylum Pact – legitimises the establishment of return hubs in third countries for the externalisation of asylum procedures and administrative detention beyond the EU’s borders.
Families with children at risk of imprisonment
But the most serious development concerns the possibility that families with children may henceforth be subject to expulsion orders or administrative detention, raising obvious concerns about safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of young children in detention centres for repatriation, where conditions of detention are dire and often infringe on people’s rights.
Striking a balance between security and rights: the challenges ahead
The aim of the Pact, therefore, is clear and represents an ambitious attempt to overcome the imbalances in the Dublin system. However, the extension of detention periods, the outsourcing of procedures to third countries and, above all, the risk that removal and detention measures will affect families with children raise ethical and legal questions that can no longer be postponed.
Whilst the stated aim is to strike a balance between border protection and people’s rights, the reality of detention centres risks telling a different story. The migration challenge is a major one, but what is needed is shared governance and an approach that is as far removed from a security-first mindset as possible (even if some people cheer on ICE; but, to quote Gaber, the obsession with imitating the Americans and copying their excesses will not make us more civilised) and respect for the founding values of a political Union born of solidarity and which must continue to be guided by solidarity.
Sources
EU sees rise in pushbacks and sharp fall in the number of irregular migrants, eunews, 12 May 2026
More days spent in CPRs, fewer repatriations, 20 September 2023, pagellapolitica
What changes under the new EU agreement on returns, 8 June 2026, pagellapolitica
EU Return Regulation 2026: what’s changing for asylum seekers, 16 June 2026, Casa della Carità
