It emerges from a letter that the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has sent to the EU member states ahead of the summit in Brussels on 17-18 October.
"The Commission will present a new legislative proposal that sets clear requirements for cooperation from those who are to be returned", von der Leyen writes in the letter.
The proposal for an updated return directive is intended to replace an earlier proposal from 2018 that the EU countries were unable to agree on. The idea is to make the process surrounding returns simpler and more efficient.
Return Centers?
The letter, with ten points on the direction of migration policy, is a response to demands from many member states, including Sweden, for a tougher approach to asylum policy.
One proposal is that member states should accept return decisions made by another member state, without conducting a new review. This would, according to the letter, prevent "migrants who have a return decision against them in one country from exploiting loopholes in the system and avoiding being sent back to another member state".
Six years ago, in 2018, the Commission concluded that return centers, or centers for asylum seekers to the EU, outside the Union could not be reconciled with EU legislation. But now such centers, located outside the EU, are to be studied again. Von der Leyen writes that Italy's recently initiated cooperation with Albania, on sending migrants from boats heading for Italy to a camp in Albania, can provide practical experience.
Sweden Welcomes
EU Minister Jessica Rosencrantz (The Moderate Party) notes that the migration work in the EU "does not stop" with the asylum and migration pact that was finally agreed on as recently as this spring.
We must also look at other tools. From the Swedish side, we have said that we welcome the fact that we are looking at more solutions, says Rosencrantz in connection with an EU meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
Here are some of the ideas being discussed among EU countries in the area of migration:
* Updating and sharpening the EU's return directive.
* Setting up return centers in countries outside the EU.
* Handling all asylum applications in centers outside the EU.
* Using EU funds for physical border barriers at the EU's external borders.
* Withholding aid or making trade more difficult with countries that refuse to take back deported citizens.
Migration is expected to be a main topic when the EU countries' heads of state and government gather for a summit in Brussels on Thursday.
