The European Union unveiled a plan to encourage immigrants whose asylum applications were rejected voluntarily to leave, persuade their countries to return them and help them integrate better.
The new strategy envisages providing advice to immigrants who arrived without permission on the benefits of repatriation, facilitating practical and legal procedures for their deportation, and using development aid or imposing visa restrictions to persuade the countries from which they left or crossed to return them.
"It is no secret that the European Union has not done a good job with regard to the returns," Margaritis Chinas Vice President of the European Commission told reporters.
He added that about half a million people were refused permission to stay in 2019, and only 142,000 people were returned.
The European Union has been striving to reform its immigration and asylum policies since more than a million people arrived in Europe without a permit in 2015, most of them were Syrian refugees, which put pressure on refugee facilities on the Greek islands and Italy.
Their arrival triggered one of the biggest political crises in Europe, as states wrangled over who should bear their responsibility and whether other countries were obliged to help.
Comments
Post a Comment