Share :

Download PDF :

EU Observer (5 June 2026)

Nikolaj NIELSEN

The UNHCR warned that failed asylum seekers have committed no crime: ‘They failed to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. It’s not a crime, it cannot be punished, and certainly not in a third country’ 

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has been actively advising EU states to align with international law in their efforts to set up so-called ‘return hubs’ outside the bloc, where rejected asylum seekers can be kept before eventually departing to their final destinations.

“We have not only been approached by those member states, but we have also been proactively advising them,” Jean-Nicolas Beuze, who heads the Brussels office of the UN agency, told EUobserver on Friday (5 June).

Click for more