This article is an opinion piece whose contents represent the standpoint of its author and not the UPF Lund or The Perspective’s editorial board.
It is no secret that the question of migration has been a controversial and highly relevant political question in Europe over the past years. Following the so-called 2015 refugee crisis, far-right parties have gained more ground. They often use migration as a tactic to persuade their supporters that limiting the inflow of migrants can solve societal issues, such as rising unemployment or criminality, arguing that migration is a threat to their country’s social welfare.
This is all old news to anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past 10 years. There are, however, new developments happening within the migration debate that are sparking further controversy. A new form of migration control that is appearing more frequently is “return hubs”.
So, what are return hubs? As the name suggests, it is a place where migrants are sent after their asylum applications have been refused or if they, for other reasons, have been found to not be authorised to remain in the EU. Normally, they would be able to stay in the EU until the final deportation takes place, while this new phenomenon forcibly moves them to these hubs in non-EU countries while they wait.
Although this is not a widespread phenomenon as of yet, interest is brewing in the EU as more actors look to Italy’s deal with Albania from 2024 as inspiration. The deal included an agreement that Albania is to accept up to 36 000 people and lock them in detention centres, where they are to stay until their case is decided. Those who are granted Italian asylum are given free entry to Italy, while those who don’t are to be returned to their respective home countries.
This was a heavily criticised deal, with warnings coming in that the practice would infringe upon migrants’ rights. Yet, by March 2026, 90 migrants were being held at an Albanian detention centre.
Despite the warnings of infringements upon migrants’ rights, the EU passed a new Return Regulation in June 2026, which made this type of return hub fully within the legal constraints of the Union. This EU policy has been criticised for allowing EU countries to strike deals with third countries, also allowing the deals to take on more informal forms, thereby easier allowing them to bypass democratic scrutiny. The UN High Commissioner Volker Türk also criticised the policy, viewing it as the EU “outsourcing their human rights obligations”.
So, back to the Italy-Albania deal, Italy benefited from not having to deal with the asylum seekers within the country. But what did Albania have to gain from striking the deal? The answer is money. Italy has granted a budget of 650 million euros, to be paid out over the five years of the deal.
While Italy is what you could call a pioneer when it comes to this type of return hub, externalisation agreements, which outsource migration to third countries, are not new to the EU. Previous examples include deals between the EU and Turkey, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Their shared attributes are that they are informal and that they are made with authoritarian regimes that offer no guarantee that migrants’ rights will be upheld.
Another dimension of what these deals entail, other than migrants being exchanged for money, is the political power that gets placed in the hands of the third country. One example is the 2016 EU-Turkey deal, in which Turkey was to receive 6 billion euros in exchange for helping the EU control irregular migrant flows into the EU. Turkey later used their position as leverage against the EU, opening their own borders to incentivise the EU to align with Turkey’s wishes.
This is not a purely European phenomenon; rather, similar initiatives and agreements have taken place around the world. It is therefore important that we consider the implications that these deals have on our democracies and ideals.
The question then becomes: How important is it for the EU to limit migration to the Union? It seems to be the hill they are willing to die on, disregarding the human rights that the Union advocates so clearly for in other circumstances. Why is it that migrants’ rights do not matter when it is our responsibility to ensure them?
By Ella Målberg
