EU countries push for bloc to pay for migrant 'return hubs'
Member states, including Malta, agree on a common budget for 'safe' returns and 'innovative solutions' on migration
Updated 4.10pm
The European Union could fund the creation of deportation centres outside the bloc under plans backed by member states on Tuesday, as Brussels tightens the screws on irregular migration.
EU countries are pushing for European money to go towards the financing of new measures to prevent and counter irregular migration under the 27-nation bloc's next long-term budget, which is currently being negotiated.
A text approved by EU affairs ministers during a meeting in Brussels calls for the common budget to contribute "to safe, dignified, sustainable and effective returns" and to "innovative solutions" on migration.
Malta was among EU member states to back the creation of a common budget, sources told Times of Malta.
The reference to "innovative solutions" in the text is a catch-all phrase for ideas pushed by migration hawks such as Italy and the Netherlands, including the creation of overseas centres to process asylum applications or deport people with no right to stay -- the so-called "return hubs".
The move comes as European governments have sought a tougher stance amid hardening public opinion on migration, which has fuelled far-right electoral gains across the continent.
European lawmakers are expected to give the final green light Wednesday to a tightening of migration rules that would allow for the creation of such centres.
The document approved Tuesday -- intended to guide governments in negotiations with the European Parliament -- "creates an opening" for return hubs to be run with the help of EU money down the line, a European diplomat said.
The funds would come from a money pot dedicated to cooperation programmes with non-EU countries, to which the European Commission has proposed allocating €200 billion in total.
The possibility is opposed by Spain and France.
France's Europe minister Benjamin Haddad told colleagues during the meeting Paris "regretted" the text's wording, while Spain's Fernando Sampedro Marcos said Madrid believed that "so-called return hubs... should not be funded" by Brussels.
Proponents say return hubs -- which would serve either as the final destination or as transfer centres for those expelled -- could facilitate repatriations and act as a deterrent for would-be irregular migrants.
But rights groups have criticised them as "legal black holes" that could see migrants stranded in limbo with little oversight.
Like the rest of the budget, any EU funding would have to win the backing of the European Parliament to become a reality.
A second European diplomat said that was not a given, describing the provision as a hard-right "political stunt".
Negotiations on the EU's spending plan for 2028-2034 -- which the commission proposed last year should total about two trillion euros -- are expected to last months.