The Austrian EMN National Contact Point (NCP) held a conference entitled Irregular Migration and Return in the EU and Austria which presented and discussed European and national policies and measures on irregular migration and return. The conference took place in Vienna on 21 September 2015.
The introductory presentation dealt with migration routes of irregular migrants to the EU and factors influencing decision making of migrants in transit countries on the way to Europe: their decision to stay in a country of transit, pursue onward migration or return to their country of origin. Katie Kuschminder from Maastricht Graduate School of Governance interlinked her contribution with the first results of field research which was conducted in Greece and Turkey and whose detailed outputs and conclusions will be available in the study on Irregular Migrants Decision Making Factors in Transit at the beginning of 2016.
Overview of the EU migration policy development from 1990s was presented by Fabian Lutz from the European Commission who then focused on the EU policy in the field of irregular migration and return: EU powers, current and planned legislation, financial instruments, agencies and IT systems in this field as well as related measures from other EU policies. He devoted special attention to recently approved EU documents: European Agenda on Migration, EU Action Plan against Migrant Smuggling, EU Action Plan on Return as well as Return Handbook which is recommended to be used by the EU Member States and is soon to be published in all official EU languages. EU fosters the increase in return effectiveness since in 2014 out of the total 470 080 return decisions taken in the EU only 40.9% were carried out in practice. He underlined the importance of horizontal scope of migration and the intent of the Commission to mainstream migration into other EU policies including commerce and development which should be mutually coordinated. He also stressed the progress of EMN and the quality of its outputs which the European Commission uses more and more frequently.
In the panel on national policies and measures in the field of irregular migration and returns the Dutch and Greek representatives described the current developments and the planned activities. The Netherlands has been recording an increase in the number of asylum seekers to almost 200 persons per day. Greece is facing a continuous increase in the number of irregular migrants who are entering from Turkey. Most of the migrants apprehended in Greece come from Syria and Iraq. As for the returns, Greece draw attention to the existing EU Readmission Agreement with Turkey which in its three-year transit period allows Turkey for readmission of its citizens only, not other third-country nationals.
Particular focus was placed on voluntary returns which the EU prefers over forced returns and which Member States use increasingly (13% in 2013 compared to 40% in 2014). Representative of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Interior accentuated voluntary returns as a strategic principle of the return policy in Austria, the need for a dialogue with the civic society as well as the activity and knowledge of IOM in this field. EMN National Contact Points for Austria, France and Norway presented results of their national studies on Dissemination of information on voluntary return: How to reach irregular migrants not in contact with the authorities. Due to the character of voluntary returns which is also conditioned with the issuance of a return decision in compliance with the Return Directive, Norway officially started to use the term “assisted return” instead of “assisted voluntary return”.
More information about the conference including programme and presentations is available on the Austrian EMN NCP website.
After the conference, a working meeting of several EMN NCPs took place to discuss optimisation of EMN national studies and reports.