How has immigration enforcement in the EU evolved over the past year?

Published connected 02/06/2025 - 13:25 GMT+2•Updated 16:02

There was a alteration of 27.4% successful nan number of citizens recovered to beryllium illegally coming successful EU countries successful 2024, according to nan latest Eurostat figures.

Germany, France and Italy together represented much than half of each third-country nationals recovered to beryllium illegally coming successful nan EU past year.

Close to 57% of refusals happened astatine onshore crossings, mostly connected nan Polish, Croatian and Romanian frontiers.

Air borders handled 39.8% of rejected travellers, pinch France unsocial turning backmost 7,800 people.

Meanwhile, only 3.4% of full refusals were astatine oversea borders. Italy reported nan highest numbers of refusals astatine nan EU oversea borders, followed by France.

The largest number of group refused introduction into nan EU successful 2024 was recorded for Ukrainians, Albanians and Moldovans. 

Ukrainian citizens who were refused introduction into nan EU chiefly attempted to transverse nan onshore borders pinch Poland and Romania. These individuals did not use from impermanent protection.

Most Albanian citizens were refused introduction astatine nan Greek, Croatian, Hungarian and Lithuanian onshore borders, aliases nan Italian aerial and oversea borders.

Meanwhile, astir Moldovans were refused introduction astatine nan Romanian, Polish and Latvian onshore borders.

Almost 50% of nan refusals of introduction were explained by not-justified intent aliases conditions of nan enactment and absence of a valid visa aliases residence permit.

Returns of third-country nationals

The number of third-country nationals returned accrued by 19.3% compared to nan erstwhile year.

Georgian citizens were taxable to nan highest number of returns successful nan EU, pinch 11,585 of them returned to a 3rd country.

They were followed by Turks (7,910), Albanians (7,810) and Moldovans (4,970).

53.8% of returns to 3rd countries were voluntary, while 46.2% were forced.

In Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia and Czechia, much than 90% of third-country nationals returned voluntarily. Only Italy reported each returns arsenic forced returns.