The European Union has formally adopted new rules allowing member states to establish migrant return hubs outside the bloc, completing a legislative process that significantly expands the tools available to governments seeking to remove people with no legal right to remain.

The Council gave its final approval to the Return Regulation on 1 October. The measure introduces a common European framework for returns, including a European Return Order, stronger obligations on people ordered to leave and special provisions for individuals regarded as security risks.

It also creates an explicit legal basis for member states to send people subject to return decisions to facilities established in non-EU countries.

Such arrangements can only be concluded with countries considered to respect international human rights standards and international law, including the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning people to places where they face persecution or serious harm.

Unaccompanied minors are excluded from transfers to return hubs.

The regulation will enter into force the day after its publication in the EU’s Official Journal. Provisions dealing with return hubs will apply immediately, while measures requiring administrative preparations will take effect one year later.

The decision moves the return-hub policy beyond the negotiating stage. In September, EU Today reported that Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece had begun actively seeking third countries willing to host return centres.

By the end of September, the same group was preparing a pilot system intended to begin transferring rejected asylum seekers outside the EU during 2027.

The European Commission has argued that the existing returns system has been one of the weakest parts of EU migration policy. When agreement on the legislation was reached in June, it said the effective return rate had risen to 28 per cent in 2025 but remained too low.

The Council now puts the problem more starkly: around two in every three people ordered to leave the EU do not actually leave.

A central element of the new framework is the European Return Order.

A member state issuing a return decision will enter essential information on a standard European form. That will give other member states the information required to recognise the decision if the person subsequently moves elsewhere within the Union.

Automatic recognition will not initially be compulsory. Governments will be able to recognise another country’s return decision voluntarily, with the arrangement due to be reviewed three years after the regulation enters into force.

The Commission may then propose making mutual recognition mandatory.

People ordered to leave will also face an EU-wide obligation to cooperate with national authorities. Failure to do so can lead to reduced benefits or allowances, withdrawal of incentives for voluntary departure, financial penalties and, where national legislation permits, criminal sanctions.

Separate rules apply to individuals considered security risks.

Governments may impose indefinite entry bans where justified and proportionate and may detain such individuals for periods exceeding 24 months.

The Return Regulation complements the wider EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which entered application on 12 June. That system introduced new arrangements covering border screening, asylum procedures, biometric registration and responsibility-sharing between member states.

Return hubs have nevertheless become one of the most politically significant elements of the wider migration policy.

The European Parliament approved the new returns framework in June, after Council and parliamentary negotiators had reached a provisional agreement earlier that month.

Attention subsequently moved to implementation — particularly the question of finding governments outside the EU willing to host people removed from member states.

The regulation cannot compel a third country to accept a return centre. An agreement or arrangement must first be negotiated with the country concerned, covering legal safeguards and the operation of the facility.

That requirement leaves the most difficult diplomatic question unresolved.

The five governments already working together on return hubs have discussed possible partner countries, while Greece has separately moved to create national legislation supporting transfers to centres outside the EU.

The Council’s decision gives those initiatives a common European legal framework. Whether return hubs become a significant part of EU migration policy will now depend on agreements with countries prepared to host them.