Europe is spending billions on deporting migrants. Why the strategy isn’t working

For over a decade, the European Union (EU) has relied on external partnerships to increase the return of migrants who don’t have the right to stay in Europe. It has used a growing web of funding instruments, projects and bilateral arrangements to get countries in Africa and the Middle East to cooperate in its bid to send migrants back to their home countries.

Its policies have included incentives such as the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, the Facility for Refugees in Türkiye and the Neighbourhood Development and International Cooperation Instrument.

Billions of euros have been channelled into migration-related projects.

Incentives have been accompanied by coercion. The EU wields the revised Visa Code (Article 25a) as a lever, allowing the European Commission to impose visa restrictions on countries that don’t cooperate.

Alongside this financial and diplomatic leverage, the EU has invested heavily in enforcement infrastructure to increase returns. This includes border equipment, biometric databases, detention capacity and operational support through Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency.

The approach has been dubbed the EU’s externalisation strategy. It assumes that financial incentives can buy cooperation and that enforcement infrastructure can convert political agreements into actual returns.

In Africa, the EU has used funding primarily as a containment tool, while in the Middle East it has been a way to share the burden of the Syrian crisis. Neither model has produced the desired cooperation.

We are policy leader fellows at the European University Institute’s Florence School of Transnational Governance. Building on previous research on EU return and readmission governance, our latest policy brief examines whether the EU’s policies have led to sustained cooperation on returns from Africa and the Middle East. We drew on Eurostat returns data, EU spending records and the European Migration Network.

The short answer: it hasn’t. Return rates remain below 10% across most of Africa. In the Middle East, only a small number of states cooperate meaningfully. Our research confirms that return rates follow regional structural dynamics more than they respond to readmission agreements or funding levels.

We found that financial leverage and enforcement infrastructure have contributed to a more transactional and short-term approach. Cooperation is often negotiated case by case and dependent on short-term political bargaining.

Based on the evidence from our research, we argue that more funding on returns and readmissions will have limited effect on actual returns to countries of origin. We conclude with three recommendations for better aligning the EU’s return objectives with its financial and diplomatic investments.

First, measure the quality of returns rather than the volume alone, including the sustainability and safety of reintegration. Second, prioritise targeted migration diplomacy over broad financial packages, keeping migrant rights central to EU partnerships. And third, expand investment in legal labour migration pathways, currently under 10% of total EU migration spending.

Impact

The return rate of African migrants is, on aggregate, 9.9%. This figure masks dramatic sub-regional variation. North Africa’s 11.2% return rate is partly driven by cooperation with Morocco and Tunisia. In contrast, return rates are lower in west Africa (7.5%) and east Africa (7.9%), regions that generate many irregular arrivals to Europe and receive substantial EU migration funding.

In the Middle East, the region’s overall return rate is 16.8%. There is strong cooperation with Jordan (57.0%) and Iraq (35.4%). Yemen remains at 2.1%, underlining that high funding and political will cannot substitute for basic conditions of safety and state functionality in countries of origin.

Voluntary return programmes, often supported with reintegration funding, are widely promoted as a more humane alternative to forced deportations. Yet the boundary between the two is often blurred: migrants may opt for “voluntary” return after receiving a return order, facing detention, or losing access to legal stay. Assisted return is rarely a pre-planned choice for migrants – it is mostly a last resort.

The answers

We make three recommendations. First, measure the quality of returns, including the sustainability and safety of reintegration. Understanding returnees’ experiences can help ensure that return policies do not lead to renewed displacement or onward migration.

To support this, reintegration programmes should adopt standardised indicators covering areas such as housing, income, access to healthcare, education, legal status, and overall well-being. Outcomes should be monitored over the longer term, and onward migration or re-displacement tracked as indicators of policy failure.

Second, prioritise targeted migration diplomacy over broad financial packages. Sustained engagement with specific partners can produce more lasting outcomes than broad financial packages. At the same time, migrant rights and international protection standards must be upheld.

Third, expand investment in legal labour migration pathways, like schemes that match training in countries of origin with labour shortages in the EU.

The EU should increase dedicated funding, streamline recognitions and visa processes and provide incentives for stronger private sector engagement.

Qualified migrants could then work legally and support economic development in both origin and destination countries.

Migration cooperation is ultimately political. Enforcement tools are not effective if there is no political cooperation.