Five EU states push 'return hubs' for 2027 as Italy weighs role

Five European Union countries are seeking a deal with an unnamed non-EU country to host a 'return hub' for migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected, with a targeted start date of January 1, a Danish minister said Friday, according to The Local Italy.

The proposal, which would centralise deportations of rejected applicants in a third country, lands at a moment when Italy's role as the EU's primary Mediterranean arrival point keeps migration near the top of the bloc's agenda. The Danish minister's comments came as EU interior ministers discussed migration policy in Brussels.

From the Ligurian waterfront, the plan reads as another attempt to shift the migrant processing burden beyond Europe's borders — a concept that has circulated in various forms for years but has yet to produce a functioning model anywhere.

The push for return hubs is part of a broader European effort to speed up deportations, which have long been a bottleneck in EU migration policy. Fewer than one in five rejected asylum seekers are effectively returned to their countries of origin, a figure that has frustrated northern member states and fuelled support for offshore processing schemes.

The Local Italy noted that the five countries involved have not been named publicly, nor has the prospective host nation. Danish Immigration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek was quoted as saying the group wants to 'move from discussion to action' and is exploring legal and practical frameworks to make the hubs operational within months.

For Italy, the concept carries particular weight. The country's southern shores have been the main entry point for irregular crossings from North Africa for over a decade, and Rome has repeatedly called for greater EU solidarity in managing arrivals and returns. A hub outside the bloc could relieve pressure on Italian reception centres, but it also raises questions about legal oversight and human rights standards in a country with no EU obligations.

Seen from Genoa, the port city's long experience with migration flows — both as a commercial gateway and as a point of disembarkation for rescue ships — suggests that offshore processing is easier to announce than to implement. The city's harbour masters and humanitarian groups have watched successive EU schemes, from the Dublin regulation to the recent migration pact, struggle to reconcile border control with legal safeguards.

The January 2027 target is ambitious, and the absence of a named host country underscores the diplomatic hurdles. Several African nations have previously rejected similar proposals, and any deal would require guarantees on funding, security and the treatment of returnees. The Danish minister's announcement appears designed to build momentum ahead of the EU's next migration summit, where the return hub concept is expected to be a central topic.