By Migreurop

With the adoption of the ‘Return Directive’ in June 2008 and the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum in October of the same year, the EU has intensified the fight against so-called irregular immigration, while still leaving Member States with a wide scope for defining national immigration policies. During the past months, EU Member States have implemented a number of policies aiming to reinforce border control and ensure the return of undocumented immigrants to their countries of origin – notably through ‘readmission agreements’.

Claudia CHARLES (GISTI)

A readmission agreement is an agreement by which the signatory States commit themselves to readmitting on their soil their own nationals who were apprehended as they were in an irregular situation on the soil of another State; but also foreigners who are not nationals but who transited through their soil before being apprehended in another State.