Improving return and readmission, stepping up voluntary returns and helping reintegration

The European Commission adopted the European Union Strategy on Voluntary Return and Reintegration in April 2021. This Strategy promotes voluntary return and reintegration as an integral part of a common EU system for returns, setting out measures to strengthen the European return framework, to improve the management of return processes and the quality of reintegration programmes, and to establish better links with development initiatives to strengthen cooperation with partner countries. Together with Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration, the European Commission also funds Libya’s Voluntary Humanitarian Return, a tool providing protection and a viable alternative to stranded migrants.

To support the implementation of the GCM objective 21, and in line with the EU Strategy, the European Union commits its continued work on developing tools that will increase effectiveness of return and sustainable reintegration:



A) the Commission is working together with Member States and Frontex on the development of a return counselling curriculum, linked to the EU Framework on return counselling accompanying the Strategy. The Framework and the curriculum will help improve the availability and quality of return counselling in Member States.



B) The Commission will develop a quality framework for reintegration service providers, identifying common standards. The framework will take due account of the specific needs faced by vulnerable groups, stress the importance of fostering the ownership of partner countries and increase and harmonise the quality and content of individual assistance.



C) the Return and Reintegration Facility, financed under Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and implemented by ICMPD, will support the development and implementation of new approaches to return and reintegration. Through cooperation with Member States, the Commission and Frontex, the Facility will improve both the quality of support given, including for vulnerable groups, and will act as an innovation incubator for new practices in the field of return and reintegration, including through small-scale technical capacity building in third countries, which may be transferred to permanent structures or replicated in other countries.