Europe is once again flirting with the idea of exporting its immigration problem. Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands are reportedly discussing “return hubs” outside the European Union, described as offshore reception or holding facilities for people whose asylum applications have been rejected but who cannot be removed quickly. Ultimately, the discussions sound eerily similar to what the UK failed to implement with its “Rwanda Plan” under Rishi Sunak — which was later revealed to have been nothing more than a popularity stunt.

It is the kind of policy proposal that sounds decisive in a press release and collapses into legal, diplomatic, and logistical reality the moment someone tries to implement it. The European pitch is that a shared offshore system could accelerate returns and deter arrivals. The result of the UK’s Rwanda plan was political theatre, legal paralysis, and even higher Channel crossings than before.

The “Return Hub” Pitch to Create Deterrence and Distance

Greek MP, Thanos Plevris, said on national TV that Greece was working with Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark, to create so-called returned hubs, located “preferably in Africa”. He also confirmed that ministers from each of the five countries had already met to discuss the issue, with technical teams following up next week.

Plevris continued, “we are not speaking theoretically any more, we are speaking practically.” Although he didn’t specify which countries were being considered as hosts of the proposed return hubs, and said it’s “not binding” that Africa would be used, he elaborated that the use of these hubs would be for people whose asylum applications are rejected and whose countries of origin would not take them back. He said their existence would act as a deterrent to prospective migrants who are unlikely to be granted asylum, and that the aim was for an initial plan to be in place in the next few months. It wasn’t made clear when any such return centres would be up and running, however.

Reports point to countries Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda being investigated as possible host countries for rejected asylum seekers. There is already precedent for at least one bilateral “hub” concept. The Netherlands signed a letter of intent with Uganda in late 2025 that has been described as a pathway for using Uganda as a “return hub” for certain removal cases.

Greece and the Netherlands Lead the Way

The motivation is not hard to grasp. Greece is a frontline state, and returns are the chronic weakness of Europe’s migration system. According to AP’s reporting, Greece carries out thousands of returns each year but still faces tens of thousands of arrivals annually, with a large share of claims ultimately refused. A “hub” is being sold as a way to bridge that gap between rejection and actual removal.

The subtext is even simpler: keep rejected asylum seekers out of Europe’s legal and welfare ecosystems, and the problem becomes cheaper, less visible, and more politically manageable. That is also where the legal risks begin.

Remembering UK’s Failed Rwanda Plan

The UK’s Rwanda plan was billed as a deterrent against Channel crossings and a signal that illegal entry would not lead to settlement. It instead became a multi-year saga that failed to remove anyone under the scheme for long periods, while generating a permanent fog of litigation and political spin.

The UK Supreme Court ultimately ruled the Rwanda policy unlawful in November 2023, driven by findings about safety and the risk of refoulement. Whatever one thinks of the broader immigration and asylum debate, the key lesson for Europe is practical: if courts conclude a third country is not “safe” in the required legal sense, your deterrent turns into a billboard advertising state impotence.

And the numbers did not reward the spectacle. UK government data shows 29,437 people arrived by small boat in 2023, then 36,816 in 2024, which is a 25% increase. Whatever deterrent effect politicians claimed was coming “soon,” the crossings continued.

Is This Just Another “Distraction”?

At the time of the UK’s policy failure, a European Conservative piece argued the Rwanda scheme operated primarily as a distraction, a way to look serious while avoiding the structural reforms required to regain control. A second report argued that Rishi Sunak sold the plan as a trust-restoring gesture while privately doubting it could ever succeed.

Even if one treats those claims as polemical, they point to a pattern that Europe should recognise. Offshore plans are seductive precisely because they allow governments to sound tough without doing the hard work that actually reduces illegal flows: consistent removals, fast decisions, credible enforcement, and diplomatic leverage with origin countries.

If Europe’s “return hub” project becomes another symbolic architecture with no throughput, it will not deter anyone. It will simply broadcast that Europe is willing to outsource its responsibilities but not able to enforce its decisions.

What’s Different This Time for Europe?

Europe’s advocates will argue that the EU has advantages the UK lacked: scale, pooled funding, and collective leverage. They will also argue that “return hubs” are narrower than asylum offshoring because they focus on rejected cases.

Those are meaningful differences, but the constraints remain familiar. The first is legal. If individuals are transferred to third countries, European courts will still scrutinise safety, due process, and non-refoulement risks. The second is diplomacy. A “hub” requires host states that are willing to take political heat, accept people who are not their nationals, and police onward movement. The third is logistics. Moving people across continents is expensive, and the system only works if removals from the hub to countries of origin happen reliably.

Greece’s own figures, as reported by AP, illustrate the pressure point. If arrivals remain high and return capacity remains low, “processing somewhere else” becomes an administrative waiting room, not a solution.

Final Thought

Europe is reaching for offshore “return hubs” because the current system cannot reliably convert a rejected asylum decision into an actual departure. The political class wants a lever that looks decisive, moves the problem out of sight, and deters the next boat.

Britain tried that lever with Rwanda. The courts stopped it, the politics curdled, and the Channel crossings kept rising anyway. If the EU repeats the exercise without building a credible, lawful, high-throughput returns regime, it will end up with the same outcome in a different accent: big announcements, small numbers, and a public that grows even less willing to believe anything it is told.