European Union officials on Monday were putting the finishing touches on a far-reaching revamp of the bloc’s migration rules, aiming to accelerate deportations and expand the use of detention.
The move follows years of bitter political arguments over migration, during which far-right parties have gained ground across Europe.
Public attitudes have noticeably shifted since a large influx of asylum-seekers and other migrants arrived in Europe about 10 years ago. Migration rules at the EU level have grown tougher, and asylum applications have fallen from their peak. Even so, US President Donald Trump has sharply criticised the EU’s approach in recent days, portraying the 27-nation bloc as weak on migration as part of a broader national security narrative.
At a meeting in Brussels, ministers signed off on the idea of a ‘safe third country’ and agreed on a list of countries of origin deemed safe, according to Danish migration minister Rasmus Stoklund.
Under those provisions, EU states would be able to refuse residence permits and deport migrants either because they come from a country considered safe or because they could seek asylum in a safe country outside the EU.
‘We will be able to reject people that have no reason for asylum in Europe, and then it will be possible for us to make mechanisms and procedures that enable us to return them faster,’ Stoklund said. ‘It should not be human smugglers that control the access to Europe.’
The ministers also backed the creation of a so-called ‘solidarity pool’ to distribute the financial burden of hosting refugees among member states.
The scheme is expected to raise 430 million euros, which would be allocated to countries under the greatest migratory pressure, including Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain.
Hungary and Poland have consistently rejected any requirement to host migrants or contribute funds towards their support.
‘We have to speed up. It is important to give the people also the feeling back that we have control over what is happening,’ said Magnus Brunner, the EU’s commissioner for migration.
The proposals now move to negotiations between the European Council and the European Parliament’s 720 MEPs, who can approve, amend or reject the changes. Parties on the right and far right broadly agree in backing the reforms.
Human rights groups have been highly critical. Olivia Sundberg Diez, Amnesty International’s EU advocate on migration, compared the EU’s plans to the Trump administration’s hardline approach and urged MEPs to stop measures that ‘will inflict deep harm on migrants and the communities that welcome them’.
French Green MEP Mélissa Camara went further, describing the overhaul as ‘a renunciation of our fundamental values and human rights’.
The latest steps build on sweeping changes endorsed by EU governments in May, when the European Commission unveiled a renewed Pact on Migration and Asylum. That package included calls to increase deportations and establish so-called ‘return hubs’, a euphemism for centres intended to hold asylum-seekers whose applications have been rejected.
While the EU itself would neither build nor run these ‘return hubs’, whether in Europe or abroad, it would put the legal framework in place to allow individual countries to strike deals with non-EU states willing to receive rejected asylum-seekers.
Austria and Denmark are among the countries most likely to pursue such arrangements, despite the high costs and legal uncertainty, said Camille Le Coz, director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe. She pointed to a September agreement between the Netherlands and Uganda to host refugees as an example.
These proposed hubs are distinct from an earlier arrangement between Italy and Albania to process asylum claims offshore for migrants rescued at sea — an experiment that has so far failed. Although European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen once praised the Italian-Albanian plan as an ‘out-of-the-box’ response to irregular migration, Italian courts have repeatedly blocked its implementation.
Mainstream parties hope the new migration pact will finally settle disputes that have divided EU countries since more than one million migrants arrived in 2015, many fleeing conflict in Syria and Iraq.
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1/ It has been just over a year since this Commission took office, and together with the Member States, we are delivering on the biggest European migration and asylum system reform.
— Magnus Brunner (@magnusbrunner) December 8, 2025
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