European Commission - Press release

Today the European Commission asked 8 Member States to ensure full compliance with EU rules on the return or removal of irregular migrants. So far Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and The Netherlands have not notified the Commission of national measures implementing the 2008 'Return' Directive. Member States were required to transpose the provisions of the Directive by 24 December 2010 and their failure to do so is jeopardizing the efficiency and fairness of the common return procedure and undermining the EU's migration policy

ECRE published its comments on the amended Commission proposal to recast the Reception Conditions Directive (RCD) on 29 September.

In a study by Matrix Insight Ltd and ICMPD carried out for the EU Commission DG Home Affairs, research was undertaken on best practices in the field of forced return monitoring. When looking at over 30 countries, nine best practice case studies were identified to support the transposition of Article 8(6) of the Return Directive, specifying that Member States shall provide an effective forced return monitoring of irregularly staying third-country nationals.