Five EU states push 'return hubs' for rejected migrants by 2027

Five European Union countries are seeking an agreement with an unnamed non-EU country to host a "return hub" for migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected, according to a Danish minister's statement reported by The Local Italy on Friday. The targeted start date for the facility is January 1 next year, the minister said.

The proposal comes as EU interior ministers gather to discuss migration policy, a file on which Italy's government has sought to position itself as a hard-line but pragmatic partner for northern European states. Rome has long pressed for faster returns of those without the right to stay, arguing that the burden of managing arrivals falls disproportionately on southern member states.

The Danish minister's remarks, carried by The Local Italy, did not name the non-EU country under consideration for the hub, nor which five member states are involved. The plan would see migrants whose claims have failed transferred to a third country while their removal is processed, a model that echoes earlier EU discussions about offshore processing during peaks of Mediterranean arrivals.

For the Lazio region, whose capital hosts the national government and the EU's migration diplomacy, the proposal carries a double significance. Rome has been a staging point for arrivals who pass through reception centres before being dispersed across regions, and the city's administration has repeatedly complained about the concentration of asylum seekers in the capital. A functioning return system would ease that pressure, though the details of the plan remain thin.

The initiative also places Italy in a familiar position: a frontline state whose cooperation is sought for a policy that requires legal and logistical coordination across the bloc. Whether the unnamed country will accept the arrangement, and on what terms, is not stated in the reporting. The January 1 target is ambitious, given that no formal agreement has been announced.

The migration file has been a constant of EU summits, and the return-hub proposal is likely to feature in the next round of ministerial talks. The Local Italy's report gives no indication of which governments are party to the plan or what incentives the host country has been offered, leaving the scheme's viability an open question.