The Future of Reintegration Is a Key Missing Piece in Europe’s Focus on Returns

European policymakers are under greater pressure than ever to demonstrate that they can deliver on the return of migrants who lack a pathway to remain, with the entry into force on June 12 of the European Union’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum.

This new EU architecture largely relies on the assumption that individuals not entitled to international protection are swiftly returned to their country of origin. Earlier this month, the European Union reached agreement on new legislation foreseeing a much stricter approach to return management. The new Return Regulation expands EU leverage to increase forced returns, for example by lengthening detention periods and introducing provisions for establishing return hubs in third countries willing to host non-nationals.

Amid the focus on forced returns, the reintegration of returnees appears an afterthought on the political agenda. In practice, this topic rarely makes headlines and is scarcely referenced by European leaders, despite the significant chunk of public funding allocated to this objective. This is partly due to limited evidence that reintegration programmes consistently achieve durable outcomes, and the political sensitivities surrounding support for people with no right to remain in Europe. And yet, reintegration is a core component of the return system: at a minimum, it influences the willingness of countries of origin to cooperate on readmission and has implications for stability and social cohesion in receiving communities.

'Amid the focus on forced returns, the reintegration of returnees appears an afterthought on the political agenda'.

Besides, significant shifts in reintegration programming have taken place, leading to increasingly diverse practices and the involvement of a wider range of stakeholders. Critically, countries of origin are increasingly rolling out their own reintegration support, particularly across Central America. At the same time, Frontex has been expanding its role in managing reintegration, and the subject will be a key consideration as the agency’s mandate comes up for review this year. Finally, this topic features in the negotiations for the next EU budget for 2028-34.

As the tough negotiations on the Return Regulation have come to an end—with right and far-right voices in the European Parliament scoring enforcement gains—it is a timely moment to reassess priorities and design a future governance structure for European reintegration support.

A Crowded Field

Despite the recent shift towards forced return, European governments continue to offer people with no right to stay the option of assisted return, often coupled with support to reintegrate. This is a distinctive feature of the European approach, and it reflects a recognition that assisted return is generally more cost-effective, faster, and more respectful of individual dignity. Over the past decades, Member States have developed their own Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) schemes, leading to a patchwork of programmes with different geographical coverage, eligibility criteria, reintegration assistance, and implementing partners.

In 2022, Frontex added a new layer with the creation of a European Union Reintegration Programme (EURP), aimed at fostering harmonisation in AVRR practices across the bloc. Most Member States make use of Frontex’s services, with operations with six implementing partners in 40 countries of origin. Several Member States complement Frontex’s assistance with top-ups, while in other cases, the EURP operates alongside AVRR programmes directly managed by Member States. This helps Member States preserve long-standing partnerships on return and readmission and deliver additional care to vulnerable cases.

And finally, similar yet distinct EU-supported AVRR schemes operate along key migration corridors to Europe. This includes programmes in Libya, Tunisia, and Niger, where the European Union provides stranded individuals with an option to return home with support, while discouraging onward movement towards Europe. The assistance is often delivered by the same UN agency implementing Member States’ AVRR programmes, the International Organization for Migration (IOM). As a result, a multiplicity of actors now offers reintegration assistance, leading to a situation in which authorities in both origin and destination countries often lack the full AVRR picture.

The Limits of Reintegration Support

This crowded field of reintegration actors underscores the importance European governments attach to the subject. Indeed, policymakers view reintegration support as a tool to encourage migrants to comply with return decisions, promote sustained stay after return, and facilitate governments’ cooperation on readmission. In practice, these programmes assist returnees in meeting basic health and social needs and, most commonly, in launching small income-generating activities.

However, a growing body of evidence casts doubt on the extent to which these objectives are achieved. First, financial incentives play a limited role in shaping migrants’ return decisions, with factors such as long-term prospects in the destination country, family expectations, and origin-country conditions proving more decisive. Along migration routes, particularly in Tunisia and Libya, migrants often choose assisted return after facing exhaustion, detention, and violence. Still, reintegration assistance may have a small effect in tipping the balance.

Besides, there is growing scepticism about the extent to which reintegration assistance given to individuals can meaningfully support their longer-term reintegration and deter future onward movement. In interviews conducted by Migration Policy Institute Europe in Iraq, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, Cameroon, and Madagascar, several returnees reported that they intended to attempt irregular migration again, while others said they would not do so—but primarily because of the extreme hardship they had endured. While there are cases where reintegration support has enabled individuals to re-establish themselves within their communities, this appears to occur primarily when such assistance is coupled with strong family support and broader community engagement. Achieving these outcomes, however, requires sustained investment and follow-ups, which European programmes often struggle to maintain, especially given current budgetary constraints.

Better data would help address the questions regarding impact but AVRR programme monitoring and evaluation has historically been patchy. There has been some progress, though: the European Commission and several Member States, including Germany and France, have commissioned impact evaluations and others have introduced more robust monitoring systems. At the EU level, the rollout of a common reintegration case management system has enabled more systematic tracking of activities and outputs, and the development of sizeable datasets. Yet, significant gaps persist in improving the scope and harnessing these data to produce consistent evidence on programme results and reintegration trajectories.

Another key concern is that these reintegration programmes often operate in parallel to domestic social services, with IOM, NGOs, and other AVRR partners providing counselling and reintegration support that is weakly connected to local institutions. Some steps have been taken, especially in Africa and in Southwest Asia, where national referral mechanisms aim to connect reintegration providers with existing local provisions. The rationale is to recognise the inherently short-term nature of reintegration support and embed it within broader national systems, rather than maintaining stand-alone, externally funded interventions. These mechanisms have, however, produced uneven outcomes, depending on the entity managing referrals, the smoothness of partner cooperation, and the services available locally.

Towards More Inclusive Systems

To bridge this gap between reintegration support and local systems, European development actors have begun to play a more prominent role. This marks a recent shift, as these agencies had previously been reluctant to engage in this area. Three dynamics have driven this evolution. First, there is recognition of the scale of returns from multiple regions, alongside an increasing willingness among origin countries to prioritise reintegration. This is particularly evident for West African governments managing returns from North Africa and Niger, as well as in the Horn of Africa, where authorities receive large numbers of returnees from Gulf states and, most recently, Sudan.

Second, on the political front, several European governments have elevated return and reintegration within their migration-development agendas. France’s 2022 migration and development strategy, for example, includes a dedicated pillar on return and reintegration. Third, EU funding to strengthen return and reintegration governance in origin countries has grown, largely driven by the acknowledgment that AVRR programmes are costly and, for returns beyond Europe, unlikely to be sustained at current levels, making investments in systems in countries of origin increasingly urgent.

As such, a range of programmes funded through the European Union’s development arm now support partner governments in strengthening service provision and returnees’ inclusion. Initiatives in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, and Senegal illustrate this shift, placing strong emphasis on working with national and subnational authorities to develop policies and context‑specific approaches. The aim is to operationalise support not only for returnees but also for the communities to which they return and other groups in need of support, recognising that reinforcing social cohesion is essential, as is fighting prejudices against returnees.

However, these efforts are unfolding in a particularly difficult context, including major cuts to foreign aid, which are affecting service provision and livelihoods. Against this backdrop, there is a risk that service delivery systems will be eroded, and job opportunities shrink. In this context, initiatives to support returnees’ inclusion may struggle to find traction, and could even fuel grievances, especially in fragile settings.

Besides, support still must account for the specific needs of vulnerable returnees. Victims of trafficking, for instance, require specialised care to recover from trauma, avoid stigma, and support that does not lock them into a new cycle of exploitation. Such care is often unavailable through local public services, while recent aid cuts have curtailed the capacity of many specialized NGOs.

Rearranging the Pieces Together

Programme streams led by different actors with distinct mandates, funding, and areas of expertise underscore the need to articulate a vision of how these approaches fit together and what the long-term direction should be. Specifically, there is a need to outline funding priorities and what practices work to foster local development and returnees’ inclusion, as well as maintain a strong protection focus. Moving forward, three guiding principles could shape a roadmap towards a more coherent European assisted return and reintegration landscape:

• Refocus assisted voluntary return programmes on their main objectives. For migrants facing a final return decision, more could be done to help them understand and eventually accept their legal situation and consider return, including via outreach, counselling, and health support. In addition, greater emphasis could be placed on connecting migrants to partner organisations and peers who have gone through similar experiences, so they are better prepared ahead of return. Furthermore, countries of origin and returnees often point to the difficulty of retaining access to the social rights, savings, and belongings acquired during their stay in Europe, an issue that could be treated as a priority for future action.
• Provide additional support for local civil-society organisations in countries of origin, especially in the context of reduced aid. Many of these actors directly support returnees as part of broader community services, playing a role in fostering social cohesion. They can also help address persistent prejudices against returnees, an area where more efforts are needed to counter misperceptions, including through returnee-led networks. These organisations are especially critical in supporting vulnerable groups, such as victims of trafficking and unaccompanied minors, and ensuring continuity of care. Many have expertise that origin-country public authorities may not be fully equipped to handle, including in mental health services and protection arrangements.
• Anchor reintegration in regular service delivery, through clear transition plans. European funding can play a key role in strengthening institutional capacity, making public services more inclusive for returnees and supporting local labour market opportunities. It is essential to continue working with origin-country governments that have identified the need to strengthen reintegration in their national system and are ready to dedicate funding to this objective. Such a shift will necessarily be gradual and will not be achievable in the most fragile contexts. At the same time, the growing involvement of development actors in reintegration creates an opportunity to link these efforts more systematically with their broader work in partner countries. AVRR and development stakeholders are now in regular exchange, opening a space to design context-specific plans. There are still many steps ahead, with different models, from Iraq to Armenia and Nigeria, but they should converge toward that same trajectory.

The current moment is important to clarify a common European vision for reintegration. Discussions on the revision of Frontex’s mandate and the European Union’s future financial framework offer an opportunity to align with the need for more coherent reintegration systems and draw lessons from the development programmes underway. New dialogues with countries of origin, from West Africa to the Middle East, have emerged on nationally led reintegration systems, and there is a risk that without clear political steering on the EU side, the window will be missed to advance common objectives.