The EU Member States face political, normative, and operational challenges in returning rejected asylum seekers and 'irregular' migrants to their origin or third countries as well as difficulties in cooperating with transit and origin countries and migrants. The process needs swift, transparent, and cost-effective procedures while ensuring humane and fair treatment in compliance with fundamental rights and EU procedural safeguards. This project investigates the gap between the expected outcomes of EU return policies and the actual results. GAPs aims to decenter the prevailing one-sided understanding of 'return policymaking' by considering multiple perspectives and studying the complex interaction of various actors in the governance of returns, both internally and externally and focusing explicitly on studying practices.
Objectives include
a) scrutinising the shortcomings of the EU’s governance of returns with both its internal and external dimensions.
b) analysing enablers and barriers of international cooperation on readmission.
c) illuminating migrants' perspectives to understand their knowledge of return policies, aspirations, and experiences.
d) co-creating and suggesting alternative pathways and models for existing return policies and practices, and cooperate with stakeholders to contribute to the interplay between policy and science.
The project covers a wide range of countries of destination, origin, and temporary settlement in and beyond Europe, including 12 countries across Europe (Germany, Sweden, Poland, Greece), Africa (Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco), and the broader Middle East (Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Afghanistan), additionally Canada and the UK. The nine work packages focus on themes on conceptual and data issues, legal and policy frameworks in the EU, return infrastructures and practices, south-south return dynamics, international cooperation, public attitudes, aspiration of migrants in transit countries, experiences of returnees in origin countries and alternative pathways. The research adopts a multi-disciplinary approach and a combination of qualitative (desk research and interviews) and quantitative (public attitude and returnee surveys) data collection in both EU and non-EU countries. The evidence and knowledge generated will contribute to scholarly debates and inform public and policy debates.
