00:00Now, European lawmakers have voted to make it easier for EU countries to set up migrant detention centers outside the
00:08bloc.
00:08It's a move that could pave the way for so-called return hubs in third countries.
00:13The European Parliament approved the proposal by a significant majority,
00:16allowing member states to negotiate deportation arrangements with countries outside the EU.
00:22Supporters say it marks a tougher new approach to migration and border control.
00:26Critics, though, warn it could undermine asylum protections and outsource responsibility beyond European oversight.
00:32This all comes as several EU states are already exploring deals with African countries.
00:37Our European correspondent Dave Keating joins us now.
00:40Dave, exactly what has been voted on today?
00:45Yeah, this is a pretty major shift to the way the EU deals with migration.
00:50This returns law would allow countries to send people who have had their asylum claims rejected
00:57or people who have found to be illegally in an EU country to a third country.
01:02That is, a country that has nothing to do with that migrant concerned.
01:07Third countries with which individual European countries have bilateral deals for these so-called return hubs.
01:14So these are places where they can send people who have had their asylum claims rejected
01:19or who have committed a crime, where they can send them easily,
01:23because the problem has been that a lot of the third countries to which these migrants,
01:28from which these migrants have come, have refused to take them back.
01:33This would also make it harder for migrants to appeal the decisions to reject their asylum claims.
01:41And also, most significantly, it would no longer mean that their deportations are suspended
01:48while they appeal the decision.
01:51There were lots of stories of migrants staying for years and years in EU countries,
01:56moving between EU countries even, while their asylum claims were being processed.
02:02Now, this would also allow countries to ban particular people who have committed crimes,
02:09and make it so they couldn't even come while their asylum process was being voted on.
02:14So it's a pretty significant move.
02:17It is that this position that the European Parliament has adopted
02:20is pretty similar to the position already taken by the national governments in the Council.
02:26That's the upper house of the EU's legislature.
02:29So now the two versions of this legislation,
02:31in the lower house and the upper house, will come together,
02:34and they'll have to make them into one law.
02:38But that isn't expected to be a big problem,
02:40because these two versions of the bill are both quite hard-line,
02:44and it's expected that this can be worked through in negotiations
02:48between the national governments and the parliament pretty quickly,
02:51in probably about two months.
02:53And once again, we're seeing, Dave,
02:55the narrative being driven by the right forming an alliance with the far-right.
03:02Indeed. So this is yet another example
03:05of the center-right European People's Party
03:08of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
03:10cooperating with the far-right group of Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban.
03:16They together got this over the line.
03:19The left opposed this law.
03:21But right now there is a right-wing majority in the European Parliament
03:25since the European Parliament election of 2024.
03:30At first, von der Leyen's EPP said they weren't going to cooperate
03:34with the far-right, but that taboo has basically been shattered.
03:38They are routinely voting with the far-right now,
03:41and this is another instance of it,
03:43because the center-left, the left, the liberals,
03:45the far-left, the Greens, they all voted against this.
03:48Now, there were defectors within the center-left.
03:50For instance, the party of Mehta Friedrichsen,
03:53who is technically on the center-left but takes a very hard line on migration.
03:57Not surprisingly, her MEPs voted for this.
04:00We also had some liberal MEPs, for instance, the liberals from Germany.
04:03But on the whole, this was a right-left divide in the parliament,
04:06and this would not have passed today without the cooperation
04:10between von der Leyen center-right and the far-right of Marine Le Pen.
04:15Dave Keating, thank you so much for just laying that out for us
04:19after that landmark vote in the European circles.
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