Deregulation & Deportation: Dismantling of EU standards, disguised as “common return system”
Broschüre · Publication in english
July 2026
The recently agreed Return Regulation (RR) marks a nefarious dismantling of European Union (EU) standards on deportation non-citizens from its Member States’ territories. The legal text agreed in June 2026 by the European Parliament and the Council and entering into force mainly in the coming year is an unprecedented deterioration of legal safeguards in contempt of good law-making and evidence.
Under the disguise of a Regulation, the RR affords EU countries the widest possible discretion to domestically legislate around and beyond EU rules, from the contents of return decisions and the possibility to offer voluntary departure periods to the definition of ‘security cases’, cooperation obligations, sanctions for non-compliance, and grounds for detention. Granting such sweeping powers to states turns the very aim of harmonisation of national systems on its head and defeats any prospect of effective oversight, monitoring and enforceability of the EU system, given that the near total of core RR rules can be exceeded by national provisions. In sum, the “common return system” hailed by the EU is a Regulation only in name.