Maria Walsh is a Fine Gael MEP for the Midlands-North West, and is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP). She is a member of the Civil Liberties, Justice & Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee responsible for migration policy in the Parliament.
Europe’s migration policy has shifted steadily to the right, with the latest evidence of this trend playing out in the European Parliament this week. At times, this shift has seemed gradual yet the question now facing MEPs is stark; should Europe outsource its migration policy?
This week, the concept of ‘return hubs’ is being voted on in the European Parliament – an idea that first gained prominence through the UK’s Rwanda scheme and is now being promoted across Europe as a response to immigration. While many of my colleagues will likely support this approach, I believe it is a regressive step which only serves to outsource, rather than responsibly manage, the Union’s migration flows. In doing so, it risks sidelining the very people at the heart of this issue – individuals, many of them vulnerable, who are too often overlooked in an increasingly politicised debate.
Under the ‘return hubs’ proposal, EU member states would be able to deport individuals to countries they have no connection to or have never set foot in, where they will be detained in centres for indeterminate periods of time. Amnesty International has made it clear that such a policy cannot be implemented in a way that is fully compliant with human rights standards.
By their very design, return hubs entail a high level of risk given they operate outside the jurisdiction of the EU. While these centres will be funded by European taxpayers, they will not be governed by EU laws and standards. Instead, the rights and treatment of individuals would depend entirely on the host country.
Given the lack of respect for human rights in some of the EU’s existing agreements with third countries – such as in Tunisia, Libya or Egypt – I am not convinced that references to human rights guarantees or safeguards will translate in practice. I have witnessed first-hand some of the realities faced by migrants in these contexts: children not given access to school, medical services stopped, little to no shelter for families and when I spoke with legal experts, some Irish, they told me they were not allowed onto the Lesvos Emergency Camp to meet with clients.
Return hubs are part of a broader trend of migration ‘externalisation’ – the idea that countries, mostly wealthy and western ones, shift responsibility for border control, asylum processing and migration management onto third countries. In essence, it is the outsourcing of migrants and migration policy.
Previous attempts to outsource migration responsibilities to third countries have resulted in human rights violations. Violations which are highly predictable and should be foreseen – especially by countries with the information and resources to do so. For example, in Libya, refugees and migrants have been subjected to unimaginable violence; torture, rape, forced labour and prolonged detention.
The UK-Rwanda Asylum Partnership, launched by the Conservative Party in 2022 to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, is perhaps the most high-profile example of migration ‘externalisation’. The Rwanda policy was formally scrapped by the UK Labour government in July 2024, having faced legal challenges and ultimately failing in its aim of relocating any asylum seekers to Rwanda – despite costing the UK taxpayer £700 million.
I will be voting against the policy of return hubs in the Parliament this week – even though doing so means breaking ranks with my own political family, the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in the Parliament. During the last parliamentary term, the EPP worked constructively with centrist, pro-EU groups in the Parliament on migration – most notably to pass the EU Asylum & Migration Pact. We can, and must, choose this path again.
What we are seeing now is a knee-jerk reaction to political pressure – often driven by a small but very loud minority of people. I am not blind to the challenges that exist within Ireland and across the EU when it comes to migration. However, the separation of fact from fiction in this debate is imperative with the responsibility to distinguish between the two falling on those in positions of power.
The notion that immigration continues to increase is not borne out by the statistics. In 2024, almost 913,000 people applied for international protection in the EU countries for the first time, a decrease of 13% compared with 2023. In Ireland, asylum applications dropped nearly 30% in 2025. These figures point not to a system in crisis, but to one that is beginning to stabilise.
If a person does not have the right to remain in Europe, they should not stay. But relying on return hubs as the primary tool to enforce that principle is misguided. They are not a silver bullet – they are a shortcut that risk severe human rights violations under the EU’s watch.
More broadly, migration policy at EU level is increasingly being framed through a security lens. Within this shift, there is a risk that the human dimension is lost. The individuals at the centre of this issue become an afterthought, and compassion slips down the list of priorities.
Ireland must continue to offer a different perspective – one grounded in fairness, responsibility and respect for human dignity. Over the coming weeks, we must watch closely how Ireland and our closest allies vote on this policy when it comes before national governments at the EU Council.
We can manage migration effectively without abandoning our values. But we cannot do so by exporting our responsibilities elsewhere.