This EMN Inform summarizes the main findings of the EMN study “The effectiveness of return in EU Member States: challenges and good practices linked to EU rules and standards”.

In this dissertation to obtain the degree of Doctor at Maastricht University, Marieke van Houte shows that the expectations on which migration and development policies are based only apply to a small minority of returnees, who are not the group that is targeted by these policies.

Myria, the Federal Migration Centre, has published a new thematic booklet as part of its annual report "Migration in figures and rights 2025". The publication presents recent figures on return, detention and removal, while analysing major legislative developments in Belgian return policy. It also examines the situation of detainees without legal residence in Belgian prisons and reviews the creation of the National Preventive Mechanism against ill-treatment in detention. According to Myria, return indicators have continued to rise after the pandemic, while new laws significantly expand the use of control and coercive measures.

During this event, key challenges associated with the European return system will be examined, including divergences in Member States’ practices and obstacles to forced return. The conference will then focus on ongoing legislative developments and their implications for migration management and the Schengen area. Participants will discuss the role of a common and effective return system in supporting cooperation and migration management under the new Pact on Migration and Asylum.

The European Migration Network (EMN) Hungary Presidency High-Level Conference will focus on possible avenues for more effective and efficient implementation of returns, with special emphasis on the important aspects of the return procedure, internal coherence, and joint cooperation with third countries and digitalisation to support the common EU system for returns.

Home Affairs Ministers met at the JHA Council in Brussels on 19 October. They discussed progress on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum and exchanged views on the EU’s approach to the external dimension of migration. They stressed that the EU should efficiently use all the tools at its disposal to develop a preventive model which would hinder irregular departures, as well as to foster the effectiveness of returns.

After the terrorist attack perpetrated by an illegally staying failed asylum seeker in the centre of Brussels on 16 October, various policymakers plead for better follow-up of failed asylum seekers and stricter enforcement of orders to leave the territory.

PREMIG is a four-year research project 2011-2014 based at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). The project addresses return migration from Norway and the United Kingdom

The Belgian Immigration Office started the SEFOR Project, which aims at ensuring the follow-up of the migrants having received an order to leave the territory, if they are effectively returning to their country of origin, voluntarily or not (SEFOR meaning "Sensibilisation, Follow-up, Return)