By Steven Blaakman

The European Union increasingly relies on cooperation with non-EU countries to tackle irregular migration, an issue of increasing political importance. However, sending irregular migrants back to their countries of origin or to a transit country depends on the other country agreeing to accept the migrant's readmission. In the 2000s, the EU started concluding readmission agreements with non-EU countries. From 2016, it started to focus on informal readmission deals. These non-legally binding agreements were easier to conclude, but did not lead to higher readmission rates. There was also less transparency about how they were negotiated and carried out, leading to human rights concerns. The European Parliament called for more transparency and scrutiny on several occasions. In 2025, the European Commission proposed a return regulation in a bid to boost migrant returns. Following the 2015 migration crisis, the EU also pursued non-binding agreements with third countries to prevent irregular migrants from arriving in the EU. This involved the EU offering incentives such as funding and visa liberalisation in exchange for non-EU countries doing more to stop migrants from travelling to the EU. As these are not legally binding, there is a lack of transparency and no clear role for the Parliament to check how these are being implemented. This has also led to concerns over human rights.The EU is updating rules on safe countries of origin and safe third countries to facilitate asylum application processing and setting up return hubs in non-EU countries.The Commission has made cooperation with non-EU countries an important part of its strategy for migration management to 2031 and is proposing extra funding to make this possible in the EU's budget for 2028-2034.