The Return Directive was approved by the European Parliament on June 18, 2008 (369 votes in favour, 197 against, and 106 abstentions). This directive entails the possibility to jail undocumented migrants for up to 18 months before their expulsion. This document applies to all immigrants who overstay their visas (it does not apply to asylum-seekers, but it applies to the ones who have been refused asylum) and it is an attempt to implement common standards for immigration detention and return of irregular migrants. The directive does not apply to the UK and Ireland, because the two countries did not opt into it.
Focus on National Sovereignty
According to the Directive, each member state retains the power to decide in the first place whether it wishes to regularize or deport the immigrant. The Council inserted the case of emergency situations, which stipulates that, if an exceptionally large number of third country nationals place an unforeseen heavy burden on the administration or judicial capacity of a member state, that state must decide to allow longer periods for judicial review and less favourable conditions of detention.Even if the period of detention is set at six months, the time for detention can be extended to 18 months
The Debate in the European Parliament
The debate of the MEPs in relation to the “return directive” shows the contradictory positions of the political groups within the European Parliament. While the EPP-ED, ALDE and UEN groups supported the document, the PES wants some amendments and the Greens/EFA, GUE/NGL and IND/DEM voted against the directive. While the EPP-ED representative, Agustin de Mera Garcia Consuegra (Spain) said that the directive is, “a first and decisive step towards regulation legal migration,” the Socialist Martine Roure (France) held that her Group would not vote for the directive because, “it does not provide adequate protection of fundamental rights,” and would not allow for an improvement in relation to irregular immigrants detention in the European Union. Andrzej Tomasz Zapalowski (UEN, Poland) made his position clear by stating that, “before we speak about legal protection for families from outside the EU, we should be hearing something about saving our own culture on families, which has been a model for the rest of the world!”
Global Reactions to the Return Directive
Reactions came also from leaders of developing countries. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil declared that the EU’s new rules foster discrimination and prejudice: “The fear of seeing the status quo and jobs disappear has led to prejudice and discrimination against immigrants in Europe. The Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa stated that, “the directive is not a return directive, but a directive of shamefulness, it is truly a shame what Europe has done." The Bolivian President, Evo Morales sent an open letter to the European Union in which he calls the directive “draconian” and in which he states that the migrants, “whether they have documents or not, the scapegoats of the global problems is not the solution." He accuses the EU of being in violation of the following articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
- Article 2 (non-discrimination based on the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country to which a person belongs);
- Article 3 (right to life, liberty and security of the person);
- Article 5 (prohibition of torture or cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment);
- Article 6 (the right to be recognized everywhere as a person before the law);
- Article 7 (non-discrimination to equal protection of the law);
- Article 8 (the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted to him by the Constitution or by law;
- Article 9 (prohibition of arbitrary arrest, detention or exile);
- Article 13 (the right to leave any country and to return to that country).
The European Immigration Pact
The “return directive” is considered to be a future part of the larger project on the management of immigration, namely the European Immigration Pact, which is strongly supported by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and which was promoted during the French Presidency of the European Union in 2008. As indicated by the French Minister for Immigration and National Identity, Brice Hortefeux, migration and more exactly “bringing immigration under control” is becoming one of the priorities of the European Union.
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