Analysis: An ‘Effective’ Cooperation on Readmission and Return?

The analysis of EU readmission and return cooperation reveals limitations in the EU’s approach and challenges its claims of policy ‘effectiveness’. A ‘blueprint approach’ for cooperation on readmission with non-EU countries is most successful in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe. Dependence on the EU and negative incentives have facilitated cooperation and shifted the cooperation towards informalisation. Return cooperation is influenced by the administrative capacities in the non-EU country and either existing ties or bilateral return cooperation and EU incentives. Readmission cooperation has little impact on return cooperation, especially beyond the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe.