Integrazione o ReImmigrazione

Impossible Repatriations and Absent Integration: Why the EU Reform Cannot Work Without the ReImmigration Paradigm

Written by

Fabio Loscerbo

in

The new negotiating position adopted by the Council of the European Union on the asylum–return package is being presented as a decisive step toward a more orderly and efficient migration system. European institutions describe the reform as a tool capable of speeding up procedures, identifying non-eligible applicants more rapidly and, above all, increasing repatriations. The message conveyed to the public is that Europe is finally regaining control. Yet a careful legal analysis reveals something very different: the normative architecture of the reform continues to ignore the real conditions that determine whether a repatriation can actually be carried out, and therefore risks repeating the same failures seen over the past twenty years.

1. The Structural Limit of Repatriations: Identification That Does Not Exist
In order to repatriate a person, it is not enough to accelerate procedures or label a country as “safe.” Repatriation is possible only if the individual is properly identified and if the country of origin agrees to take them back. The reform does not affect either of these two elements. Most undocumented migrants remain undocumented precisely because identification does not depend on the European Union but on the cooperation of the country of origin, which often has no strategic interest in facilitating European procedures. Even with faster filters and stricter timelines, the reform does not address the decisive obstacle that blocks the majority of repatriations: the material impossibility of assigning a verified identity to someone who refuses to provide one, or who comes from a State that simply does not cooperate.
This is the operational reality from which no reform can escape. Non-executed expulsions do not stem from procedural delays, but from the fact that many repatriations cannot be carried out regardless of the legal framework. The law can order a removal; the world as it is can prevent it. The reform does not bridge this gap.


2. Europe Talks About Repatriations but Ignores Non-Removable Irregular Migrants
The entire normative structure focuses on the management of entry and the first days of the procedure, especially at borders. Yet it offers no answer to the most delicate issue: what happens when a person cannot be repatriated? The reform provides no residual status, outlines no pathway and sets out no internal management strategy. It is as if the European legislator considered marginal a category that actually represents the core of the contemporary migration challenge: individuals who receive an expulsion order but whom no State accepts and no State can effectively return.
In the absence of a specific discipline, these people fall into a condition of permanent irregularity, without rights and without obligations, generating exactly the grey zone that fuels insecurity, exploitation and social tension. The legislative silence is not accidental. Acknowledging the existence of non-removable migrants would mean admitting that the European system, as currently designed, cannot translate political intent into operational outcomes. It would also require defining a coherent policy for internal permanence—something the reform carefully avoids.


3. Without a Selective Criterion, Europe Cannot Decide Who May Stay
The EU reform continues to focus exclusively on the moment of entry, as if migration governance consisted only of controls, procedures and detention. It completely ignores the phase of permanence, which should instead be built on principles of individual responsibility. No reference is made to integration as a duty. No link is established between lawful stay and the behaviour demonstrated during residence. No value is placed on employment, language acquisition or compliance with fundamental rules.
This omission prevents Europe from answering the most important question: how is the right to remain defined? A system that evaluates only the initial condition and never the subsequent behaviour is a blind system. It cannot recognise merit, it cannot reward genuine integration and it cannot use permanence as an instrument for building safety and cohesion. Moreover, it cannot manage the conflict that inevitably arises when a person cannot be repatriated but is also not integrated.
The result is an incomplete framework that leaves Member States without a rational and fact-based tool for distinguishing between those who, despite starting from an irregular position, show the will to integrate and contribute to their host community, and those who reject any form of responsibility.


4. Why the ReImmigration Paradigm Is the Missing Piece
The Integration or ReImmigration paradigm provides exactly what the EU reform lacks: a logic of individual responsibility. It is not a punitive or ideological model but a legal criterion that defines the right to remain not only on the basis of initial status but on the behaviour demonstrated over time. Integration becomes a measurable obligation grounded in three essential dimensions: participation in the labour market, knowledge of the language and fundamental rules, and compliance with the law.
This approach overcomes the ineffective rigidity of impossible removals and creates a system in which permanence is not automatic but earned. Those who meet their obligations remain and stabilise their position; those who refuse or violate those obligations enter the sphere of reimmigration. It is a model that respects individual dignity, strengthens social cohesion and restores to the State the ability to decide not only who enters, but who stays—and for what reasons.
Far from opposing the EU reform, this paradigm complements it by introducing the element that makes any migration system governable: accountability. Without it, Europe will continue to oscillate between ambitious political announcements and modest operational results.


5. The Real Risk: A Reform Destined to Disappoint Everyone
If implemented as it stands, the EU package will increase the number of expulsion orders but not the number of actual removals. Member States will claim to have strengthened procedures, yet will continue facing a large population of non-removable migrants who lack both rights and integration pathways. The gap between political promises and operational outcomes will generate frustration and new social tensions. It will be a reform that amplifies the perception of control without altering the substance of the problem.
Addressing migration requires a change of paradigm. It means recognising that migration governance cannot end at the border but must engage, in a mature and responsible way, with the question of permanence. It means distinguishing between those who contribute to the community and those who reject its rules. It means affirming that respect for the law is not optional but the minimum condition for remaining. In this sense, Integration or ReImmigration is not a slogan but the only model capable of filling the void left by the European reform.


Avv. Fabio Loscerbo
Lobbyist – EU Transparency Register ID: 280782895721-36

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