The European Union is making a new attempt to ensure that more foreigners who are required to leave the country are deported to their home country. "We have a very low return rate and I see that we can make significant progress here," EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said at a meeting with EU home affairs ministers in Stockholm on Thursday.

However, it is disputed how much pressure the EU should exert on countries of origin with which cooperation is difficult, and how much incentives for cooperation should be created. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) spoke out against using the EU visa policy offensively as a means of pressure. Other countries, on the other hand, called for the so-called visa lever to be used more frequently.

The EU has been trying for years to deport more foreigners without a right to stay, but is making little progress. In 2021, the European Court of Auditors found the existing system to be highly inefficient and "doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do: instead of deterring, it encourages illegal migration."

In figures it looks like this: In 2019, the proportion of people who were obliged to leave the EU and who actually left the EU was 29 percent. In 2021 it was - probably also due to the corona - only 21 percent. The EU Commission had announced a target of around 70 percent in 2018. The traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP also announced a "repatriation offensive" in the coalition agreement.

From the point of view of many EU countries, more repatriations would also be important because the asylum systems in many countries are completely overburdened. The number of asylum applications rose last year by almost 50 percent to 924,000. Many people have no right to international protection and are overburdening reception capacities, Johansson said. In addition, there are around four million war refugees from Ukraine who do not have to apply for asylum in the EU.

Visa policy is a key tool for the Swedish Presidency. Article 25a of the Visa Code could be "one of the most important instruments for improving cooperation with third countries in the area of ​​return and readmission," according to a paper on the meeting. This could mean that visas from certain countries take significantly longer to process or fees are increased. Countries with which cooperation is difficult include Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

Johansson also emphasized that the Visa lever works. Member States and the Commission would have to act together to put pressure on third countries. In addition, the Frontex border protection force should be used more often for deportation flights. Other means of pressure on third countries could be trade relations and development aid. Austria's Minister Gerhard Karner again called for the Commission to finance fences at the EU's external borders.

In fact, the EU Commission has so far only proposed applying the visa lever for four countries: Bangladesh, Iraq, Gambia and Senegal. The EU states, in turn, accepted the proposal for The Gambia alone. The EU Commission says that the purpose of Article 25a is not its application - but the threat of it.

Faeser expressed skepticism. "I'm reluctant to do that. I believe that the route via migration agreements is the better one." Such agreements are intended to combine facilitation of legal migration with cooperation on readmission. Germany has reached an agreement with India on this. More are to follow. Faeser wants to travel to North Africa with her French colleague Gérald Darmanin in the spring.

So far, the SPD politician has made little progress in the field of repatriations. In 2022, 12,945 people were deported from Germany. In 2019 there were more than 22,000. The topic is also difficult for Faeser because it is largely the responsibility of the federal states.

However, the number of countries of origin to which deportations are currently impossible or only possible to a very limited extent due to massive human rights violations or for other reasons has also increased. In Afghanistan, for example, the militant Islamist Taliban are in charge again. Even Iran, where protesters are currently being executed, is not a country to which people are being sent back.

Faeser will soon share political responsibility for Germany making progress on the issue of deportations with the new special representative for migration issues, Joachim Stamp (FDP). The former NRW Integration Minister will take office on February 1st.