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29
October
2024

Forced Return Monitoring Systems – 2024 update

FRA publishes annual updates on the forced return monitoring systems that EU Member States have set up under Article 8 (6) of the EU’s Return Directive (2008/115/EC). This latest update covers the period until the end of 2023.

To be effective, monitoring should be carried out by an entity that is sufficiently independent from the authority in charge of returns. In Germany and Sweden, monitors are part of the same entity that is responsible for parts of the return procedure, namely the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in Germany and the Swedish Migration Agency. There is a lack of institutional separation, and thereby independence.

Following a visit to Germany on 4–7 September 2023, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) recommended that the German government designate ‘a national forced return monitoring system that is both independent and effective’.

Those Member States that appointed national preventive mechanisms as the bodies in charge of forced return monitoring offer the strongest guarantees of independence but may face other challenges, such as limited resources. For more information, see FRA’s 2020 report Strong and Effective National Human Rights Institutions – Challenges, promising practices and opportunities.

An important aspect of effective monitoring is the publication of key findings from the monitoring activities. Most monitoring bodies publish at least a summary of their observations and of their recommendations in regular (usually annual) reports. In Czechia, Portugal and Slovakia, there are also public reports of individual operations that are monitored.

In Austria, Estonia, Germany (at the federal level), Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland and Romania, there are no recent public reports on the findings of forced return monitoring activities. In Malta, Slovenia and Sweden, reports are only available upon request.

In Croatia, no monitoring took place in 2023. According to Eurostat data on third-country nationals returned following an order to leave, some 5 800 people were forcibly returned from Croatia.

Across the EU, FRA counted some 200 national monitoring operations of charter flights in 2023, compared with some 230 in 2022. As in Germany two monitoring entities have in some cases monitored the same charter flights, the total number of monitored flights is lower.

In 10 Member States – Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany (federal and regional levels), Greece, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden – there was a decrease in the monitoring of national forced return operations compared with the previous year.

An increase in the monitoring of national forced return operations could be observed in Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain. In France, Luxembourg and Malta, figures remained at the same level.

Three Member States – Bulgaria, Cyprus and Czechia – monitored only the pre-return phase, in other words the pick-up of returnees, their transfer to the airport, and procedures before and during embarkation. Monitors were not present during the return trip itself and did not observe the handover to the country of return. In the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia, monitoring focused primarily on the pre-return phase.

Giving priority to monitoring the pre-return phase is linked to human and financial resources as well as the fact that the pre-departure phase is typically considered one where multiple fundamental rights issues can arise. FRA supports prioritising the monitoring activities based on a risk analysis, but also considers that at regular intervals all phases of the removal process should be monitored. Otherwise, this may affect the effectiveness of the forced return monitoring system.

In the first years of their operation, national monitoring bodies focused primarily on monitoring charter flights. The risk of fundamental rights violations was assessed to be higher on them than on commercial flights.

More recently, returns on commercial flights have been increasingly monitored. Like in 2022, some 600 commercial flights were monitored. In 2023, 20 Member States monitored forced return operations on commercial flights. Although risks during the in-flight phase of returns on commercial flights may be lower than during returns on charter flights, specific issues may emerge in the pre-return phase, particularly when it concerns removals of families or persons with medical issues.

In Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania and Slovenia, return operations by land were monitored. They increased from 25 land operations monitored in 2022 to 36 operations monitored in 2023. France indicated having monitored one return operation by sea.

A recurrent issue is that national monitors lack staff and funding. In some Member States, this is also showcased by the low number of operations monitored during the in-flight and handover phases.

Monitoring gaps may occur particularly where the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) pays for the monitoring. For example, in Belgium, due to the phasing out of an AMIF funded project and the lengthy procedure of re-submission and granting of the new funds a monitoring gap emerged in 2022 and continued in 2023. A similar monitoring gap occurred in Romania for the same reason.

Comparable obstacles might occur in other countries, where the monitoring is regulated through contracts concluded with the state. In Poland, the state gave four civil society organisations the authority to monitor returns, but there was no adequate funding.

To ensure sustainability in monitoring, mandated bodies should have sufficient financial and human resources.