The EU’s Readmission System: Analysing the Interplay of Soft and Hard Law

Since the Treaty of Amsterdam has provided the EU with competences in the migration field, the EU has made an effort to sign readmission agreements with countries of migrants’ origin and transit. Eighteen of them are in force by now. Yet, politicians at national and EU level have repeatedly put in the question the efficiency of this policy notably since the 2015 migration crisis, which increased the salience of the issue of irregular migrants being present in the territory of the EU. In response, the EU has developed a new Agenda for Migration, a key element of which is the conclusion of more migration control arrangement with countries of migrants’ origin and transit. Most often these deals are not legally binding agreements but political statements and operational arrangements. Scholars have called this development an ‘informalisation’ of the EU’s readmission policy (Cassarino 2018). Moreover, the EU has adopted several legally non-binding instruments including a ‘Return Handbook’ interpreting pertinent EU Law and Court rulings with the aim to step up its return rate. Relying on the theoretical framework of institutional change (Mahoney/Thelen 2010), this paper looks at the interplay of soft and hard law in the field of return cooperation. In particular we examine to what extent does soft and hard law make a difference with regard to the EU’s return cooperation? The research proceeds by comparing the actual implementation of the EU’s readmission deals in Eastern Europe (where most Eastern Partnership countries cooperate on the basis of a Union readmission agreement) and new ‘priority countries’ in Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa (which have only agreed to more informal return arrangements).