European Parliament endorses far-right-backed deportation agenda

On 26 March, the European Parliament’s plenary endorsed a compromise text on the EU’s controversial new deportations bill (draft EU Return Regulation) that sealed a toxic alliance between centre-right and far-right forces.

Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), said, “This vote marks a dangerous turning point, as centre-right forces break the cordon sanitaire to align with the far right and push through a deeply repressive agenda. This toxic alliance is paving the way for mass detention, family separation, and deportations – normalising abuse we’ve seen with ICE in the United States, and putting countless lives at risk.”

The vote followed the collapse of negotiations with liberals (Renew) and socialists (S&D) in the civil liberties committee (LIBE), as conservatives struck backroom deals with far-right MEPS to jointly vote for a more repressive compromise text, as revealed by German press agency dpa. 

With this vote, publicly elected MEPs are choosing to put hundreds of thousands of people, including children, at risk of irreparable harm. The text allows member states to detain children and adults, tear families apart, and send people to deportation centres in countries they have never set foot in. Five EU countries – Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Greece – are already collaborating on plans to set up such centres, although no information is yet available about destination countries.

The proposals also grant sweeping powers to restrict people’s movements, search belongings, impose disproportionate “security” measures, and share personal data with countries that lack safeguards.

The Parliament’s position adds to an already harmful text, that is set to normalise and escalate ICE-style immigration enforcement across the Union. The Commission’s proposal would require member states to deploy broad and undefined detection measures to catch undocumented people, which could result in invasive surveillance, racial profiling and obligations for public workers to denounce undocumented people. The Council’s position on the draft Return Regulation endorses police raids of public spaces and private homes, with very little safeguards.

The three EU institutions – Commission, Council and Parliament – will now enter trilogue negotiations to hammer out a final text.