Under the EU’s return directive (Directive 2008/115/EC), Member States must issue a return decision to third-country nationals who do not have the right to stay in their territory. Member States must take the necessary measures to enforce the return decision. When voluntary departure fails, the authorities may remove the third-country nationals by force. Such forced returns entail actions that are sensitive from a fundamental rights point of view. Monitoring helps ensure that forced returns are carried out in a way that respects people’s fundamental rights.

This report sets out the findings of the  European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) from a review of forced return monitoring activities carried out in 2023 at the national level in Member States.

In 2008, Article 8(6) of the return directive introduced a duty for Member States to provide an effective forced return monitoring system. This was the first EU law provision about monitoring fundamental rights in the area of freedom, security and justice.

In 2024, the EU pact on migration and asylum introduced a new obligation: by mid 2026, Member States must have independent national mechanisms to monitor fundamental rights compliance during the screening of new arrivals and asylum procedures at borders. Member States’ experience in monitoring forced returns will be helpful to design effective national independent monitoring mechanisms under the pact on migration and asylum.

Since 2014, FRA has been publishing an annual update of the forced return monitoring systems in EU Member States based on information it collects from the national monitoring entities. These updates provide an overview of developments and progress in addressing identified fundamental rights issues. Such updates are for the benefit of national authorities in charge of returns and for the entities in charge of monitoring.

Table 1 in the annex provides an overview of forced return monitoring in 2023.

Most forced returns are by air, on commercial or charter flights. The national authorities may organise and fund flights, or the  European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) may coordinate, organise, co-fund or fully fund them. This FRA report focuses on forced returns at the national level and how they are monitored pursuant to Article 8(6) of the return directive.

To monitor return operations supported by Frontex, a dedicated pool of forced return monitors has been set up within Frontex pursuant to Article 51 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1896. Although in practice the Frontex pool of forced return monitors has operational autonomy, FRA suggested that it should be managed by an independent body outside Frontex.

An overview of the work of the pool is available in Section 1.8 of the Frontex Fundamental Rights Officer’s 2023 annual report. It contains information on the number of monitors in the pool, their monitoring activities by type of Frontex forced return operations and overall statistics of monitored Frontex operations. The Frontex report also contains monitoring findings and recommendations. Whereas some of them are Frontex-specific, those that concern monitoring in general broadly match the findings that emerged from national monitoring, which this report describes. They concern, for example, excessive use of restraint measures, the need for better information provision and the importance of monitoring all phases of returns, not only the pre-return phase.