Austria also wants to start EU deportation centers next year

From now on, implementation should be quick. At least that is the joint project of five EU countries, including Austria and Germany. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has now made it very clear to the Financial Times what this group wants. “This year or next year we will see the first return center outside of Europe,” explained the Social Democrat and added: “I think we’ll get there next year.”

“Concrete conversations”

Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner is also completely on this line. As a “group of implementers” we are already having concrete discussions with several countries and will become Artnerland A partner country will be defined by the end of the year have. Next year we will focus on the practical implementation of the center.

But the EU is not as united behind the project as these implementers. In the EU Parliament, for example, where the majority for the return directive came from votes from the right-wing political fringe, many Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals were outraged about the planned breach of human rights.

There is also resistance among EU countries, for example from Spain’s Social Democratic Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who pursues a much more liberal refugee policy at home. The French government is also skeptical, especially when it comes to financing the centers. While the EU Commission has signaled in the background that it would also use EU funds for this, President Emmanuel Macron wants nothing to do with it. Such facilities should financed exclusively by the individual EU countries and also “I am not sure whether these are the fundamental principles on which our Europe was built.”