EU interior ministers reached “consensus” Thursday to warn outside countries refusing to take back irregular migrants they risked tighter visa restrictions to Europe, Sweden’s migration minister said.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden —
Von der Leyen said EU member states could sign up to a pilot scheme over the first half of this year to speed up screening and asylum procedures for eligible migrants — and “immediate return” for those not deemed to qualify. Capacity was further stretched by the EU hosting nearly four million Ukrainian refugees who had fled Russia’s war in their country, she said.In 2021, out of 340,500 orders for migrants to be returned to their countries of origin, only 21 percent were carried out.
Sweden — whose government relies on a far-right party, the Sweden Democrats, to stay in power — wants EU countries to leverage visas, foreign policy and development aid to press outside countries on the returns issue.So far, the EU has applied the visa-restriction tool against only one country: The Gambia, for whose citizens getting a Schengen visa is more difficult and costly.
The overall tone on migration has hardened in Europe since 2015-2016, when it took in over a million asylum-seekers, most of them Syrians fleeing the war in their country.
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