EU deportation bill set to sail through parliament, as left scramble to add safeguards

The EU’s controversial deportation bill is heading for a crucial vote next week at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, as lawmakers make last-minute efforts to amend legislation that would allow member states to deport rejected asylum seekers abroad.

The bill is likely to sail through at Wednesday’s (17 June) plenary with the support of a right-wing majority that includes far-right forces and the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), following a political agreement with EU states earlier this month.

Despite being outflanked by the right, the progressive and left-leaning political forces in the Parliament are hoping to soften the restrictions in the bill with fresh amendments.

The bill has roused widespread criticism for allowing EU states to create so-called return hubs in foreign countries. What those hubs would look like remains unclear.

But the core concept is that these facilities would be reserved for individuals whose asylum claims have been rejected, who have been ordered to leave Europe, and who cannot return to their home countries for a variety of reasons.

For Europe, the goal is clear: send them abroad and have someone else deal with them until their final destination is secured.

What remains unclear is which foreign countries are willing to host them.

Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands are taking a lead in setting them up. Both Germany and the Netherlands are hoping to have them ready before end of the year.

Fabienne Keller, a French MEP with liberal Renew Europe, has since proposed exempting children and their families from being sent to any such hubs.

Earlier this week, she told reporters in Brussels that the deportation regulation had been rushed and is ideologically driven.

“Sending families and children to return hubs in countries with which they have zero link is a failure,” she said.

She has since tabled an amendment demanding to exempt them from any such hubs. Even the procedure for tabling such amendments is a reflection of the haste to get the bill adopted by on Wednesday.

Before the vote takes place in the plenary on Wednesday, it will first have to pass the civil liberties committee on Monday evening.

The committee vote is set for 19.15 with the deadline for amendments expiring less than a hour later.

There is growing speculation about whether Renew Europe MEPs would support the regulation as a whole should Keller’s amendment fall.

The so-called ‘Venezuela majority’, a loose alliance of right-wing political factions, has a combined total of 377 votes. Most of the some 30 non-attached MEPs are also likely to vote in favour of the bill. The left coalition, meanwhile, has 311.