Unless the gap between decisions and actual returns narrows, the language of success in returns will remain, too often, a narrative that legitimises new tools.

In the EU, returns have long been presented as the most measurable part of migration governance. This is why political language hardens fastest here: faster decisions, higher enforcement, stronger deterrence. Yet at the centre of this field sits a gap that has not closed for years: the difference between orders to leave and actual returns. In the literature, this is often discussed as the deportation gap, and the EU’s claim of effectiveness in return policy is frequently built around how this gap will be narrowed (Stutz & Trauner, 2021; Slominski & Trauner, 2020).

The clearest place to see this gap is Eurostat’s quarterly figures. According to Eurostat, in the fourth quarter of 2025, 117,545 third-country nationals were ordered to leave EU Member States, while 33,860 people were actually returned to third countries (Eurostat, 2026a). The same release notes that compared with Q4 2024, orders to leave decreased by 6.1%, while actual returns increased by 13% (Eurostat, 2026a). Read together, these numbers reveal the basic arithmetic of the return regime: the capacity to issue decisions is not the same as the capacity to produce outcomes, and even when “enforcement” rises, the gap can remain a structural feature.

Eurostat also shows how this gap is patterned across nationalities and countries. In Q4 2025, the three largest citizenship groups among those ordered to leave were Algeria, Morocco, and Türkiye, while among those actually returned, Türkiye, Georgia, and Syria stand out (Eurostat, 2026a). At the Member State level, the highest numbers of orders to leave were recorded in France at 34,040, Spain at 12,380, and Germany at 10,720, while the highest numbers of actual returns were recorded in Germany at 7,690, France at 3,800, and Sweden at 2,870 (Eurostat, 2026a). This distribution is a reminder that returns are not simply a matter of administrative speed; they are shaped by documentation and identification processes, readmission diplomacy, legal procedures, administrative capacity, and national enforcement cultures.

We also know that this structural gap is not new. Stutz and Trauner show that EU readmission agreements with third countries often do not generate a lasting increase in return rates; effects are frequently temporary or limited (Stutz & Trauner, 2021). Likewise, research on informal readmission arrangements argues that “effectiveness” has increasingly been prioritised at the expense of principles, with politically problematic implications (Fernando-Gonzalo, 2023). This offers an important clue as to why the gap persists: policies may produce more agreements and more instruments, yet those instruments do not reliably translate into durable results.

A second debate begins here: is the deportation gap only an empirical reality, or also an object of construction. Scheel argues that the deportation gap can function as a statistical chimera, produced through shifting definitions, uncertainties, and data regimes, and that this structured non-knowledge can be mobilised to legitimise harsher measures (Scheel, 2024). DeBono similarly stresses that presenting return and deportation as a solution to “crisis” is practically limited and politically costly (DeBono, 2016). From this perspective, the gap is not only a technical problem to be fixed; it is also a justificatory language that accelerates policy change.

That justificatory language helps explain how the EU’s toolkit in return policy has shifted. Slominski and Trauner show that after 2015, EU return policy was increasingly reshaped through soft law instruments, which can appear faster and more flexible but are often less transparent and less constrained by judicial oversight (Slominski & Trauner, 2020). The same authors argue that Member States both use and strategically do not use “Europe” in order to maximise national flexibility, meaning the claim of a single EU regime is constantly renegotiated through national interests and capacities (Slominski & Trauner, 2017). Leerkes and Van Houte make a parallel point: it is difficult to speak of one deportation regime across Europe; instead, there are different types of implementation shaped by varying state interests and capacities (Leerkes & Van Houte, 2020). When combined with the country-level distribution in Eurostat, the conclusion becomes clearer: even where EU rules are common, practical outcomes will continue to be produced through domestic decisions.

The idea of return hubs or return platforms, which has recently moved to the centre of debate, is one of the most visible examples of this expansion in governance geography. Current discussions about a new EU return framework are not only about speeding procedures; they also raise models that could relocate return management outside EU territory. Legal analyses often frame this as an attempt to balance effective return policy and fundamental-rights protection, while also warning that such mechanisms can carry risks of declining protection standards and represent a new form of externalisation (Pahladsingh, 2025; Potyomkina, 2025). A related tension is that speed and flexibility do not always travel well with institutional balance, judicial control, and transparency (Slominski & Trauner, 2020; Niemann & Zaun, 2023).

At this point, returning to the data matters. Because while EU return policy is narrated as an effectiveness story, the data show both an increase and a limit. Actual returns rose in Q4 2025, yet the system remains defined by a wide gap between decisions and outcomes (Eurostat, 2026a). That gap is not only about administrative capacity; it is also the terrain where legal safeguards and human-rights obligations operate. Some work argues that the real key to effectiveness may lie less in speed and more in procedural design, and it reminds us that goals of efficiency can remain in tension with non-refoulement, due-process guarantees, and obligations linked to human dignity (Boková & Bražina, 2021; Pahladsingh, 2025).

For this reason, the literature increasingly treats it as insufficient to position returns as the single solution. Regularisation is discussed as an alternative that can, in some contexts, reduce irregularity in practice and produce outcomes that are arguably more “effective” than return-centred strategies (Hinterberger, 2023). Research also shows that Member State responses to irregularised non-removable third-country nationals remain fragmented, and that people in limbo often face severely restricted access to basic services, reminding us how a narrow definition of effectiveness built only on enforcement numbers can render legal and social costs invisible (Carrera et al., 2025). Defining success only through an increase in actual returns pushes these domains outside the measurement frame.

In a conclusion, If the EU is to build a credible, evidence-based claim of success in return policy, it will have to measure more than decision and enforcement counts. It will need to measure why these numbers remain structurally misaligned, which instruments fail to generate lasting effects, how soft law and informal arrangements reshape transparency and oversight, what spatial relocation through return hubs or platforms produces in terms of rights safeguards, and how the legal and social status of those who cannot be removed is addressed. Otherwise, we may end up with numbers that move faster, but less evidence of a system that is more just and more accountable.

References

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Carrera, S., Pőcze, J., & Jubany, O. (2025). A point of no return: A comparative analysis of legal and policy responses to irregularised non-removable third-country nationals in selected EU Member States. Open Research Europe. https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.20236.1

DeBono, D. (2016). Returning and deporting irregular migrants: Not a solution to the ‘refugee crisis’. Human Geography, 9, 101–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/194277861600900210

Eurostat. (2026a, March 31). Returns to third countries up by 13% in Q4 2025.

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Stutz, P., & Trauner, F. (2021). The EU’s ‘return rate’ with third countries: Why EU readmission agreements do not make much difference. International Migration. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12901