On 11 March 2025, the European Commission presented a new proposal for a Return Regulation to replace the current Return Directive. Behind the euphemistic name, the proposal outlines coercive, traumatising, and rights-violating measures premised on an imperative of increasing deportation rates. Instead of focusing on protection, housing, healthcare and education, the Regulation is premised on punitive policies, detention centres, deportation and enforcement.  

Reacting to today’s ruling by the European Union (EU) Court of Justice (ECJ) that Italy’s rules on designating certain countries of origin as ‘safe’ for people seeking asylum was incompatible with EU law, Adriana Tidona, Migration Researcher at Amnesty International, said:

Ahead of a visit by EU Migration Commissioner Brunner and EU ministers to Libya to discuss migration cooperation on 8 July, Eve Geddie, the Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said:

The EU’s recent proposals in the area of migration and asylum risk seriously undermining people’s access to fair and full asylum procedures in Europe. The European Commission’s recent initiatives appear to be interconnected components of a broader strategy to externalise the bloc’s migration management – these include its proposed revision to EU return or deportation rules put forward in March 2025, its April 2025 EU list of ‘safe countries of origin’ and a revision to the ‘safe third country’ concept in May 2025. With these measures the EU seems to be seeking to further shift responsibility for refugee protection onto countries outside its borders and sidestep legal obligations under the Refugee Convention and EU law.

Responding to the European Commission’s proposal to amend the ‘safe third country’ concept by allowing EU member states to forcibly send people seeking asylum to countries where they have no connection, without the possibility to appeal from the EU, Olivia Sundberg Diez, Amnesty International’s EU Advocate on Migration and Asylum, said:

Two years after the start of the devastating conflict in Sudan, Amnesty International and 12 civil society organizations call on the EU and other international actors to act meaningfully to protect civilians under attack.

Today, the European Commission introduced a proposed revision to the 2008 Return Directive, amending the EU legal framework on returns or deportations outside of the EU. Following pressure from certain member states, it also introduces a possible legal basis for ‘return hubs’ in EU law through “agreements or arrangements” with third countries.  

On 11 March, the District Court of The Hague will determine the admissibility of a court case brought by Amnesty International, Boat Refugee Foundation and Defence for Children Netherlands to hold the Dutch government responsible for its role in endorsing and implementing the EU-Türkiye deal. The three organizations hold the Dutch state responsible for the consequences of the deal with Türkiye which trapped thousands of people, including children, in dire conditions on the Greek islands.

Amnesty International urges EU institutions to ensure that the proposed reforms to the Facilitators Package, presented by the European Commission in November 2023 and now under negotiation, align with international human rights and refugee law. The current EU anti-smuggling framework has enabled the criminalization and prosecution of human rights defenders for acts of solidarity that uphold the rights of refugees and migrants – often lifesaving acts such as providing food, shelter or medical care. Aligning the Facilitators Package with the UN Smuggling Protocol and narrowing the offence of ‘facilitation’ of unauthorized entry, transit or residence, is therefore essential to protect migrants and refugees, their family members, as well as human rights defenders and organizations that assist them, from criminalization. This Position Paper details Amnesty International’s recommendations to ensure that the proposed directive improves the protection of human rights of refugees and migrants, and those acting in solidarity with them. 

In July 2024, Amnesty International published research which highlighted the use of systematic unlawful and arbitrary detention in the Samos Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC), as well as human rights concerns emerging from the inadequate living conditions. Today, the situation in the Samos CCAC remains alarming. Amnesty International and organisations active in the field of refugee and migrant rights in Greece urge Magnus Brunner, the Internal Affairs and Migration Commissioner, to leverage the European Commission’s oversight of the situation in the Samos CCAC to address these grave shortfalls and violations.

Ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council on 24 February 2025, Amnesty International wrote to High Representative Kaja Kallas and EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs, urging them to act on the escalating human rights crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

On 12 February, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will hear three cases against Latvia, Lithuania and Poland concerning alleged unlawful pushbacks — summary returns of migrants and refugees at the border — from these EU states to Belarus. This is the first time the European Court will rule on human rights implications of what the EU and its member states are calling ‘instrumentalized’ migration.