Denmark, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece agreed in Copenhagen on Friday on a common model for return hubs in non-EU countries, a fresh step in Europe’s long-running project of outsourcing migration control beyond its own borders. The five governments said they hope to start sending migrants to the facilities as early as 2027. The machinery is getting cleaner. The violence is getting farther away.
Brussels Writes the Script
The agreement came after a one-day meeting in Copenhagen, where the five countries lined up behind a scheme that EU states are pushing as they move ahead with plans to send people whose asylum requests have been rejected to third countries outside the bloc. The ministers said the hubs would host asylum seekers whose applications had been rejected by the five countries and who could not be returned to their countries of origin. That is the language of administrative exile, dressed up as management.
Danish Migration Minister Morten Bødskov said the plan marked a fundamental change in the common European migration and asylum system. He said the countries were moving toward being ready to transfer the first irregular migrants to a partner country outside the EU in 2027. He also said the hubs were not "a prison" or "a detention camp," but facilities where "partner countries give irregular migrants a new chance." The phrasing does a lot of work. The destination does the rest.
The five countries are negotiating the creation of the hubs on the territory of one or more partner countries that have not yet been disclosed. Uganda and Rwanda are seen as the most likely possibilities, according to several press reports. Bødskov said the countries expected to reach a common understanding with a partner country outside the European Union around New Year, while German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the five countries wanted to reach an agreement with third countries this year. Dobrindt said "technical discussions" were underway with countries outside the EU, but he did not name them.
The five countries are expected to fully finance the hubs and may also provide additional funding, commercial partnerships or other incentives to partner countries. A guiding principles document says the scheme will be established through equal and mutually beneficial partnerships with countries outside the EU. Equal, apparently, in the way a border regime counts equality: one side pays, the other side hosts the people Europe wants out of sight.
Fortress Europe Goes Offshore
Austrian Minister Gerhard Karner said the common goal was pushing illegal migration toward zero. Greek Minister Thanos Plevris said meetings with potential partners were continuing and that the discussions were "becoming deeper and more fruitful," adding that he hoped to announce an agreement in the near future. The five ministers are set to meet again in Munich at the end of September. The calendar keeps moving. So does the perimeter.
The agreements with non-EU countries will define the procedures applicable to migrants in the return hubs, the conditions of their stay and the responsibilities of the EU states involved. The ministers said the project will be carried out in partnership with international organisations, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, and in full accordance with EU law and international obligations. The International Organization for Migration said no decision had been made on its potential role and that discussions remained exploratory, while the UNHCR said it had not been approached with details of such a proposal and could not comment on the specific arrangements being discussed or on what any potential role for UNHCR might entail.
That’s the NGO mirage in one neat package: institutions invoked to lend legitimacy, then told they’re still only in "exploratory" talks. The border state gets the policy. The humanitarian logos get the press release.
In June, the European Parliament approved tougher migration rules that paved the way for the creation of return hubs. The adoption of the return regulation is likely to take place in the autumn, with final approval by EU countries, an EU official told Euronews. Nineteen EU governments said in a joint letter sent to EU leaders last June that they considered the centres an innovative solution for migration management. The majority of EU countries appear interested in setting up return hubs, while Italy already has a similar project in place with Albania.
Human Rights, Then the Fence
Return hubs have raised concerns in Europe over their compatibility with EU law and the protection of human rights. The idea has been sharply criticised by European civil society and non-governmental organisations. Michele LeVoy, director of Picum, said sending people to deportation centres outside the EU means uprooting children, adults and families from the lives they have built in Europe and subjecting them to prolonged detention in places they do not know. Andreas Grünewald, a migration expert with the German evangelical charity Brot für die Welt, called the plans practically difficult to implement and highly problematic in terms of human rights, and said ministers risked running into political dead ends.
Marta Welander of the International Rescue Committee said the plans risk normalizing detainment in prison-like facilities and warned that deportees may face persecution, torture or worse in their destination countries. Caritas said migrants risked becoming trapped in a legal grey area if arbitrarily and indefinitely detained in the hubs. Florian Westphal, CEO of Save The Children Germany, said the planned return centers in third countries are places of uncertainty and carry the risk of massive violations of children's rights, adding that transferring children to states with which they have no connection and where they face the risk of deprivation of liberty and are cut off from key figures in their lives cannot be in their best interests.
The language is polite. The destination is not.
Attempts to transfer migrants to non-EU countries have not been particularly successful so far. The United Kingdom abandoned a scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, where their applications would have been examined. Denmark ditched a similar plan in 2023 and changed its strategy from a national approach to a European one. Italy initially projected housing around 3,000 migrants a month in its Albanian centres, but the actual figure has reportedly been just 500 in total since the facilities were converted into deportation centres in March 2025. The entire bill amounts to over €670 million, and a recent study by an Italian university found that detaining migrants in these centres has been much more expensive for Italy than hosting them on its own territory.
So the model keeps mutating, the costs keep rising, and the people targeted by it keep being treated as a problem to be exported. Brussels calls it coordination. The ministers call it innovation. The result is the same old border regime, just with a longer supply chain.