BRUSSELS — The EU border agency Frontex is suspending a support program for deported migrants after its budget for the year ran out earlier than anticipated, emails seen by POLITICO show. The border agency paused new applications for reintegration support under its program on Oct. 2 after estimating that costs had “reached a level that does no longer ensure full financial coverage,” according to an email sent by Executive Director Hans Leijtens to staff on that date. The program, which has operated since 2022, offers financial assistance, healthcare, vocational training and counseling to people who are returned to their home countries after being refused the right to stay in the EU.
Reintegration support forms part of the EU’s plan to boost returns of unsuccessful asylum-seekers. The suspension comes as the EU seeks to step up deportations from the bloc — a leading pillar of EU migration policy, and the object of new legislation adopted earlier this month — and weeks before the European Commission is expected to propose expanding the mandate of the border agency, including its role in returns and reintegration. Frontex cannot resume the program without additional cash.
The agency asked the Commission for more funds, but is waiting for clarity on the EU budget for 2027, and the next seven-year budget starting in 2028, the emails said. Helping people rebuild their lives after returning to their home countries is an important part of making migration management work. It takes planning, people and money,” he said.
With 2,368 new cases per month on average, the agency took on significantly more migrants seeking reintegration support than it expected. Cases in September were 63% higher than Frontex’s target, according to Leijtens’ email to staff. In the first half of this year, the agency took on around 75% more cases than it did in the same period last year.
In previous years, Frontex was able to assign additional funds from other parts of its budget, the email says — signaling the agency has had to search to find the cash to keep the program running in the past. The agency has raised the issue with the Commission but “no further commitments could be made onwards,” according to the email. The program’s suspension raises questions about the future of the bloc’s migration approach.
Reintegration is “the key ingredient” to making the EU’s returns strategy work, Lukas Gehrke, the director of the U.N.’s migration organization’s global office in Brussels, told POLITICO. Forced returns are expensive and come with a higher risk of human rights infringements, whereas reintegration support boosts voluntary returns, reduces people’s propensity to attempt to reach the EU again, and tends to ease cooperation with the country to which they return, he argued. In emailed guidance on how to communicate the suspension to migrants who applied for support, seen by POLITICO, staff were told to “acknowledge the institutional problem” with reintegration program funding “so the returnee does not feel personally targeted or punished.” Counselors should be transparent, validate migrants’ disappointment, wait for their emotions to pass and shift the conversation to what they could still do upon their return, the guidance read, advising: “Do not argue or defend the EU policy.” Potential returnees “may feel deceived, leading to anger, despondency, or complete withdrawal from the return process,” it also warned.
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