'Not trivial': EU leaders endorse migration outsourcing but offer few details

The 27 leaders of the European Union gave on Thursday their most explicit endorsement yet of the contentious project of outsourcing migration policy, even if they offered scant details on how the idea would work in practice and how authorities would be able to respect human rights while transferring migrants outside the bloc's borders.

"New ways to prevent and counter irregular migration should be considered, in line with EU and international law," the leaders said in the conclusions of a one-day summit.

Albeit vague, the line effectively acts as the political go-ahead to experiment with established legal norms and come up with "innovative solutions," as some leaders like to call them, to decrease the number of asylum applications, which last year reached 1,129,000 last year, the highest number since 2016.

Ahead of the summit, Italy's Giorgia Meloni, the Netherlands' Dick Schoof and Denmark's Mette Frederiksen hosted a group of countries considered supportive of outsourcing to create a common front and set the tone of the hours-long negotiations.

The final text did not include one of the group's pet projects: the construction of "return hubs" in non-EU countries to host those whose applications for international protection have been rejected. Still, Ursula von der Leyen pointedly referred to the idea during a press conference, confirming the option is officially on the table.

"The return hubs have been discussed. There are open questions: For how long can people be there? What are you doing, for example, if a return is not possible?" the European Commission president said.

"It's not trivial but this is a topic that is being discussed."

Von der Leyen did not suggest any potential destination to build these "return hubs" and did