When the UK pledged to send migrants to Rwanda three years ago, the EU said the measure was inhumane and broke international law.
But with rising xenophobic sentiment and more right-wing governments coming to power on the continent, the bloc is warming to such “innovative solutions” to curb immigration.
“I think there is a broad support,” said Danish migration minister Kaare Dybvad, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. Sending asylum seekers outside the bloc “has so much traction now”, he told the Financial Times.
Denmark, Italy and Germany have been among those advocating for centres to be set up in non-EU countries to house people awaiting an asylum decision or repatriation.
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Dybvad, a Social Democrat who led Denmark’s own failed Rwanda plan, recalled the backlash triggered by this idea. The Danish government shelved the scheme amid a domestic political uproar in January 2023, and the UK’s supreme court struck down the British plan later that year.
By contrast, Dybvad said, “now when I meet with colleagues from big member states like Germany, France, Poland, Italy” there was “very strong support for moving forward”.
German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt, a Bavarian conservative, last month said that “models involving third countries have majority support. A vast majority of member states have made it clear that this is a path the EU must take.”
The shift has been particularly stark in Germany, which 10 years ago opened up to refugees from Syria and other conflict zones, with then-chancellor Angela Merkel reassuring citizens that “we can handle it” (“Wir schaffen das”).
But anti-migrant sentiment stoked by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and several deadly attacks by migrants have led Berlin to adopt increasingly harsher measures.
Other countries previously supportive of migrants, such as Luxembourg, have also changed tack as right-wing governments took over.
The EU’s stunning shift on the “externalisation” of migration comes amid a surge in public support for the far right, which has made immigration its cri du coeur.
[ Deportation flights signal Germany’s pivot to hardline stance on migrationOpens in new window ]
But moves to outsource asylum have suffered legal setbacks, with human rights advocates warning that they could undermine the very foundation the EU was set up on.
“There’s a broader trend in migration and asylum policymaking in the EU to make human rights secondary to political interests,” said Olivia Sundberg Diez, migration advocate at Amnesty International.
Britain’s scheme – under which the UK would have sent asylum seekers to Rwanda for their claims to be processed there – was struck down by the UK supreme court amid concerns the people sent there could face harm. Then-prime minister Rishi Sunak tried to salvage the scheme by designating the country as “safe”, but the current government abandoned the plan.
A similar argument used by Italy – to designate certain countries as “safe” for return – was challenged by the EU top court last week. Prime minister Giorgia Meloni reacted with fury, accusing the European Court of Justice of over-reach.
Andreina de Leo, a migration researcher at Maastricht University, said the ruling was “not surprising” as it backed up Italian courts. But for Meloni and her right-wing government, she said, “this plan has acquired such a symbolic meaning” that the premier had to lash out.
Meloni last year struck a deal with Albania to set up closed centres where migrants would be transferred while their Italian asylum applications were being processed – and most likely rejected.
After Italian courts challenged the scheme, Rome repurposed the facilities to house migrants awaiting deportation. A few dozen people have since been taken there, though most had to be taken back to Italy again before being repatriated, adding to the costs.
“To be honest, this concept doesn’t work very well,” said Maciej Duszczyk, Poland’s under-secretary of state for migration.
Still, the European Commission has backed the idea of sending people awaiting deportation to “return hubs” outside the EU – such as the repurposed Albanian centres.
Brussels also drafted legislation that could make Italy’s original plan a reality, by proposing an EU list of “safe” countries, and allowing member states to send asylum seekers there even if they don’t have a link to those places.
“The Italian model will be possible again,” said one EU official, who added that governments would “make the necessary adjustments” for asylum processing to work outside the bloc.
Germany is in talks with Rwanda to replicate the UK scheme, according to two people familiar with the discussions, though it is unclear how advanced the negotiations are given previous legal objections.
Rwanda also said this week it had agreed to take 250 migrants deported from the US, according to the government in Kigali.
The Netherlands, meanwhile, has been in talks with Uganda – a country that sentences LGBT+ people to death – about setting up a “transit hub”, according to the Dutch ministry of asylum and migration.
Denmark’s Dybvad said centres would be ideally set up in “countries in north Africa” or other “stable countries, with stable governments”.
The EU already has arrangements to curb migration and is providing funding to countries including Tunisia and Libya, where the authorities have repeatedly been accused of violating human rights.
“You facilitate human rights abuses, not just for migrants but also for citizens [of these countries],” said Tineke Strik, a Green member of the European Parliament, in reference to the Tunisian government’s crackdown on NGOs and dissidents.
While fewer migrants left the Tunisian shores in the first six months of this year compared with the same period last year, more have embarked on the perilous journey from Libya, according to the EU’s migration agency Frontex.
Human rights activists say this points to the limitations of Europe’s efforts to curb immigration by paying off authoritarian governments.
“These are unworkable and inhumane proposals that are extremely costly both on a human level, but also for the management of migration,” said Amnesty’s Sundberg Diez.
“Governments are ignoring those costs to make grand political statements on promises that they may be unable to deliver on.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
