The EU’s new return rules let member states set up return hubs in third countries, and the Council gave its final approval to the package on 1 October 2026, according to Anadolu Agency. The regulation complements the Pact on Migration and Asylum, which has applied since 12 June 2026. It also creates a European Return Order, and the hubs are the most contested part of the text.
A European Return Order is a standard document that carries the key elements of a national return decision, so that other member states can recognise it more easily. Recognition stays voluntary for now. The system will be reviewed three years after the rules enter into force, and the Commission may then propose to make recognition mandatory.
The text also toughens the treatment of people judged to be a security risk. Member states may impose an indefinite entry ban where it is justified and proportionate, and they may detain such people for longer than 24 months under the regulation’s conditions. People under a return decision must cooperate with national authorities, and non-compliance can bring reduced benefits, lost incentives for voluntary return, financial penalties or criminal sanctions where national law provides for them.
Return hubs would work as detention facilities outside the EU where people wait for deportation, modelled on the Italian centres in Albania, Euronews reports. A transfer needs an agreement or arrangement with the third country. The EU says it may conclude such deals only with countries that respect international human rights standards, including non-refoulement, and unaccompanied minors are excluded from any return hubs arrangement.
The political push is already visible. Euronews reports that a Group of Five made up of Denmark, Germany, Greece, Austria and the Netherlands wants the first return hubs to open in 2027, and it names Uzbekistan, Rwanda and Uganda as potential locations. Those names come from press reporting and not from the adopted regulation, and the sources I reviewed record no signed agreement with any of them.
Critics are blunt. Marta Welander of the International Rescue Committee calls the hubs counterproductive and describes the package as a sticking plaster, not a sustainable solution. Chiara Catelli of the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants warns about labelling countries as safe, and she cites Amnesty International documentation of rights violations in Uganda and Rwanda.
The numbers explain why governments want faster action. According to Euronews, of 110,335 orders to leave issued so far in 2026, only 36,825 have been carried out, and orders to leave fell 12 percent in the second quarter against a year earlier. Frontex detections of irregular crossings fell almost 40 percent in the first half of 2026, which suggests that border pressure has eased while enforcement lags behind.
Readers should note the gaps in the record. Neither source gives a vote count, an Official Journal publication date or an application date for the regulation, and the two reports differ on which body approved it. The adopted text should be checked before any detail is quoted.
Three markers will show whether return hubs move from principle to practice. The first is the regulation’s publication and application date. The second is the first signed agreement with a third country. The third is whether the review after three years makes mutual recognition mandatory, and whether return hubs can then coexist with the human rights safeguards the text promises.
