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Press review March 2025

 Egypt

On 25 March, the UNHCR announced that it would be ceasing its assistance activities for refugees in Egypt, including medical care for those fleeing the war in Sudan. The UN agency estimates that this decision, which it says was forced by uncertainty over the amount of contributions it can expect to receive this year, will affect around 20,000 people, who will be deprived of vital treatments (for cancer, high blood pressure or diabetes) or even heart surgery.

This decision comes just a few weeks after the United States decided to suspend all funding for the United States Agency for International Development (US AID) for 90 days (as soon as Donald Trump was inaugurated), which jeopardised numerous humanitarian programmes around the world. Since then, the Trump administration has announced an 83% cut in spending on the US AID [1], which will be de facto dissolved and the few activities that remain will be transferred to the State Department [2]. The UNHCR, which depends to a large extent on voluntary contributions from governments to operate, is the ’presentable face’ of the restrictive migration policies implemented by governments, including European ones [3]: nevertheless, it is a key player in supporting the more than 925,000 refugees in Egypt, 70% of whom are Sudanese. Against the backdrop of a worrying reform of the asylum system by the Egyptian government, in which the EU is complicit [4], and the (artificial and instrumentalised) growth of ’anti-migrant sentiment’ in Egyptian society [5], this suspension of activities is a further cause for concern about the living conditions of refugees in Egypt. On the other hand, the UNHCR continues to implement its other programmes on the ground [6] (’voluntary resettlement’ of refugees in other countries of asylum, ’voluntary returns’ to their countries of origin, etc.), illustrating its priorities and those of its donors (the EU was the third largest donor in 2024, behind the United States and Germany).

 Mauritania

On 8 March 2025, Mauritania carried out a large-scale operation to deport and push back migrants, justifying its action on the grounds that they were staying in the country ’illegally’ and its policy of ’combating migrant smuggling’. People on the move were reportedly taken to border posts identified as their point of entry into Mauritania, where they were pushed back. The Malian authorities announced that they were taking charge of their nationals and expressed their indignation at these ’flagrant violations of human rights’ [7]. Senegal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said she ’regretted the conditions under which the Senegalese have been arrested and expelled from Mauritania in recent days’ [8]. Civil society organisations have also denounced the events, with the Mauritanian Human Rights Association reporting that 1,200 people have been pushed back since the beginning of the month, 700 of whom had valid residence permits.

These deportations and pushbacks come on the anniversary of the joint declaration of 2024 announcing a ’migration partnership’ between the EU and Mauritania, accompanied by a package of 210 million euros. Although the document mentions ’respect for human rights’ as a foundation of EU-Mauritania migration cooperation, it is clear that Mauritania felt free to undermine this without incurring the wrath of the EU or risking the suspension of the allocation of European funds intended for it. And with good reason: the EU and its Member States (notably France and Spain) actively support the Mauritanian authorities in their migration policy, which violates human rights. The French Ministry of the Interior’s international technical cooperation operator, Civipol, is helping to lock down the country’s Atlantic coastline and crossings to the Canary Islands: the company has been granted €25 million under the EU-Mauritania partnership to implement a maritime border surveillance programme and search and rescue operations at sea [9]. In charge of the NETCOP programme, in collaboration with the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP, which is part of the Spanish cooperation programme), Civipol is also involved in the ’fight against migrant trafficking’, which Mauritania uses to justify these forced returns. On 24 March, the Council of the European Union adopted the payment of additional funding of 20 million euros to the Mauritanian armed forces as part of the European Peace Facility [10], in order to provide them with land surveillance equipment and a patrol boat, which will enable them to increase their presence on the Mauritanian coast and interceptions at sea [11].

 Germany

Under pressure from the Länder [12], and following the lead taken by a number of European states, as well as the European Commission [13], the federal government is said to be examining the possibilities of externalising the German asylum procedure: a report on the issue is reportedly being finalised, commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior. The report points out the many practical and legal obstacles to duplicating agreements such as the one concluded between Italy and Albania, and advises the German authorities not to embark on these initiatives alone.

It is therefore possible that Germany will seek to join forces with other EU Member States to conclude agreements on the externalisation of its asylum procedures with non-Member States, relying on the legislative reforms launched by the European Commission (framework on returns, ’safe third country’ concept).

 Austria

After being one of the first EU Member States to announce a suspension of the examination of asylum applications lodged on its territory by Syrian nationals (after the fall of Bashar El-Assad’s regime in December 2024), Austria initiated procedures to revoke the refugee status of almost 3,000 Syrians who had obtained this status less than five years ago. Family reunification was also suspended for Syrian refugees : the government subsequently announced that it wanted to extend this provision to all refugees, regardless of their nationality [14], in a manoeuvre to circumvent EU law that has been strongly criticised [15]. Although the Austrian authorities acknowledge that deportations to Syria are impossible and illegal at this stage, they justify their action by a desire to prepare ’an organised programme of repatriation and deportation to Syria’ for the more than 100,000 Syrian refugees present on its territory.

The Austrian coalition government, yielding to the demands of the far right, is seeking to push Syrians to leave the European country by exploiting the fears generated by the threat of deportation and offering them €1,000 in exchange for their ’voluntary return’. Only about a hundred Syrians are said to have ’agreed’ to return to Syria under this programme.

 Cyprus

Cyprus is accused of pushing back around 80 Syrian nationals on 14 March 2025 after they arrived on the Cypriot coast in three boats from Syria. The UNHCR has expressed its concern about these allegations, which constitute a violation of Cyprus’ international commitments: the people pushed back were allegedly forced to return to Syria, despite the fact that they were trying to flee the country.

Cyprus has already been found guilty, in 2020, of pushing back Syrian nationals to Lebanon, and was condemned%7D]by the European Court of Human Rights in October 2024. Like Italy and Greece, convictions for breaches of international law have no visible effect on the migration policies pursued by Cyprus, which continues to receive support from the EU, both technical (through Frontex [16]) and financial (through the AMIF [17] and BMVI [18] funds, of which Cyprus will receive a total of €200 million for 2021-2027 [19]).

 Greece

In a ruling,%22itemid%22:[%22001-242418%22]%7D] issued on 25 March 2025, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece for the killing of an Iraqi minor by one of its coastguards during the interception of a boat at sea on 29 August 2015. Considering the eminently dangerous nature of a gunshot in the context of such an operation, the Court found that the operation had not been properly prepared, which had not enabled the use of force and the risk to life to be reduced to a minimum. It therefore held Greece guilty of a violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to life), even though it had ’not been established that unnecessarily excessive force was used’ at the time of the events.

This ruling confirms Greece’s disregard for its international obligations concerning the use of force to control borders (dangerous towing operations leading to shipwrecks [20], recurrent shooting at boats and their occupants [21], people on the move thrown into the water [22]...), despite numerous condemnations.

 Italy

A decree-law published in the Italian Official Gazette on 28 March 2025 formalised the ’recycling’ of the Gjader camp in Albania. Following the annulment by the Italian courts of three attempted transfers of asylum seekers intercepted at sea by the Italian coastguard, under the terms of a memorandum of understanding signed in 2023 between Italy and Albania, the Italian government has taken the decision to change the function of the larger of the two camps under Italian jurisdiction in Albania. The Gjader camp, initially intended for the detention of asylum seekers (with a few places dedicated to imprisonment or a ’pre-repatriation stay’), will now be able to be used for the detention of any migrant in Italy whose expulsion has been decided by the administration. The transfer to Gjader of people locked up in one of the ten ’pre-repatriation centres’ (CPR) in Italy has also been enabled.

Italy’s unilateral decision to convert the detention camp into a CPR was made possible by the wide room for manoeuvre offered by the memorandum of understandingsigned with Albania, whose article 4(3) does not specify the distribution of places in these centres per procedure (asylum procedure at the border, or return procedure): the Meloni government only had to amend its law implementing the memorandum. However, this decision could come up against political opposition from Albania, which stated that it did not wish to amend the memorandum of understanding [23]. The deliberately brief nature of this amendment raises many questions about the practical implementation of its provisions (transfer procedures, jurisdiction and applicable legal order, consequences of non-execution of an expulsion, etc.). The intentional legal vacuum surrounding the centres in Albania and the law that applies there thus jeopardises the rights of several thousand People on the move, already detained in Italy or due to be detained in Albania [24].

 Malta

On 4 March 2025, the NGO Sea Watch – which operates civilian sea rescue vessels – rescued 32 people on the move who had been stranded for several days on a gas platform in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, without food or water, after their boat from Libya had capsized [25]. No European state reacted or offered to come to their aid, despite the critical conditions in which they found themselves: one of those who survived the crossing reportedly died on the platform. The platform was on the border between the search and rescue zones assigned to Tunisia and Malta, and Malta was responsible for organising a rescue operation. Its silence, and that of the other neighbouring European states, seemed calculated to allow Tunisia to intervene (which it eventually announced it could do [26]), at the risk of the lives and health of the shipwreck victims. Sea Watch, considering that sending these migrants to Tunisia to be a violation of their rights, of international law and of the law of the sea, decided to undertake a rescue operation.

This incident took place a few days before the Court of Cassation ordered Italy to pay financial compensation to the 177 migrants it had deliberately kept stranded for ten days, in August 2018, on the boat that had previously rescued them at sea and was seeking to disembark in Italy after being refused the right to disembark in Malta [27]. These news illustrate how the EU Member States, in no way intimidated by the legal proceedings brought against them, do not envisage any practice shift in the light of these convictions: the strategy of letting people die at sea [28] continues virulently in the Mediterranean, as in the English Channel or off the Canary Islands.

 Poland

Now passed by Parliament and ratified by the President, the government’s bill to restrict the right to apply for asylum has come into force. It comes against a backdrop of increased migration to Poland, facilitated by Russia and Belarus with the supposed aim of ’destabilising the region and the EU’. The Polish authorities have thus given themselves possibility of refusing to accept asylum applications in a given area of their territory, for a maximum of 60 days (renewable with the agreement of Parliament), in complete violation of international law. As soon as it was ratified, the law was implemented: the Polish Council of Ministers published a regulationin the official gazette suspending the right to lodge an asylum application at the Belarusian border for the next 60 days.

These decisions are a direct consequence of a Communicationfrom the European Commission from 11 December 2024, in which the Commission justified the implementation of ’exceptional measures’ by Member States affected by what it described as ’hybrid threats’. The Commission’s arguments were based on the exceptions to the principle of non-refoulement set out in the Geneva Convention and on the duty to ’protect the EU’s external borders’ incumbent on the Member States of the Schengen area, implicitly describing people on the move arriving in Poland as an inherent danger to the country. The communication was seen by the Polish government as a validation of its proposed law, despite the concerns expressed by civil society and the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights [29]. The implementation of this law risks intensifying the pushbacks of migrants by Polish border guards, whereas, according to a reportpublished on 17 February, 13,600 refoulements were recorded in 2024. This practice continues in 2025 [30], and a new reportby Oxfam, dated 18 March, highlights the violence and acts of torture to which pushed-back migrants are subjected at the Polish-Belarusian border. The EU, for its part, continues to encourage the Polish authorities: €52 million were allocated to Poland in December 2024 to strengthen its infrastructure and surveillance at its eastern border [31].

 United Kingdom

The hearings of the enquiry into the shipwreck in the English Channel on 24 November 2021, which claimed 31 lives, began on 3 March 2025 in London. The enquiry must establish the responsibility of the French coastguard in the shipwreck, following revelations in the press about their decision to ignore the distress calls of persons on board, while waiting for the boat to enter British waters. Several French servicemen have been charged with failing to assist a person in danger.

These hearings come just days after the British and French governments announced new measures [32] to combat small boats and ’smuggling networks’ in the Channel as part of the Sandhurst agreements. Despite the deadly consequences of ’Franco-British cross-border cooperation’, more than €8 million in funding has been redirected towards these measures, which will strengthen the presence and capabilities of police forces on the French coast.

The UK is reportedly considering the possibility of deporting individuals whose asylum claims have been rejected to ’return centres’ in Western Balkan countries, in exchange for financial compensation. Unlike the unsuccessful agreement with Rwanda [33], the aim would not be to examine asylum applications on foreign soil, but to detain migrants there pending their expulsion.

Although this project is still at an embryonic stage, it is part of the trend towards increased externalisation of migration policies in Europe, illustrated (among other things) by the Italy-Albania protocol, and supported by the European Commission both before the Court of Justice of the EU [34] and through its own legislative proposals [35].

 Turkey

Turkey has announced the construction of a wall on its border with Greece, with the stated aim of preventing entry into the European Union: 8.5 kilometres will be built this year, but the governor of Edirne province has already announced that additional sections will be built on the rest of the border, along the Evros river (200 kilometres long).

On the Greek side, the first barbed wire walls were erected 13 years ago [36] on a section of the border that now represents 30 kilometres (which the Greek Prime Minister has promised to extend to over 100 kilometres by next year). The border with Bulgaria, meanwhile, is completely sealed off by a wall covering its entire 260-kilometre length. Although the EU is publicly opposed to funding the construction of these walls by its Member States [37] , it complacently benefits from their existence. In addition, European foreign policy is largely geared towards border blockades of this kind. The EU-Turkey Declaration 2016 stated, in deliberately imprecise terms, that Turkey should ’take the necessary measures to prevent the opening of new sea or land routes for illegal migration from Turkey to the EU’ and cooperate with the EU and its neighbours in this regard. The construction of this wall is a continuation of this ’arrangement’, under which the EU has paid for the return to Turkey of all migrants arriving on the Greek islands from 20 March 2016, including asylum seekers for whom Turkey was considered (by Greece) to be a ’safe third country’, in exchange for substantial financial support (twice €3 billion).

 Frontex

In her traditional ’migration’ letter to the leaders of the EU Member States ahead of the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen reportedly announced that she would like to see Frontex’s mandate revised (again) in 2026. According to Euractiv, the President of the European Commission would like to empower the agency to ’organise expulsion operations directly with ’third countries’’ and extend its role in ’preventing irregular migration’.

While Regulation 2019/1896, which governs the functioning of Frontex, makes it an agency responsible for providing ’technical and operational assistance’ to Member States carrying out their ’return operations’, such announcements (the contours and scope of which remain unclear) suggest a return by the Commission to its desire to see Frontex organise returns from non-EU countries to other ’third’ countries (which it tried to introduce during the last review of the agency’s mandate, in 2019, without success). The neo-colonial aspect of this intention is alarming: if Frontex found itself in a position to organise expulsions from non-EU countries, its field of action would be extended to the point of becoming a security instrument on a global scale. At a time when the European agency is accused of complicity in violations of people on the move’s rights [38] under its current mandate, such a change in the scope of its prerogatives would run the risk of amplifying violence against deportees and facilitating its impunity.

 Proposal for a regulation on returns

On 11 March, the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulationaimed at establishing a common system for expelling non-European nationals who have no right of residence in the EU, and replacing the existing framework (notably the 2008 Return Directive). The proposal, guided by objectives of ’efficiency’, ’harmonisation’ and ’modernity’, has been strongly criticised by civil society on a number of counts: opening the way for the establishment of return hubs in non-EU countries, systematising expulsions, extending the grounds for and duration of detention, limited judicial control, obligation for Member States to restrict the freedom of movement of people subject to expulsion, increased penalties for people on the move who are deemed uncooperative with regard to their expulsion (10-year ban on entering the country, fines, reduction of financial assistance), introduction of derogations to the respect for fundamental rights for migrants accused of posing a risk to the national security or public policies of the Member State [39]...

Despite this criticism, the EU and its Member States seem determined to see the text through. In its conclusions,the European Council, meeting on 20 March 2025, called on the co-legislators to make progress on the text as a matter of priority. Potential amendments to the text still need to be proposed within the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, before the two institutions enter the negotiation phase.