The European Union is to make it harder for people from Ethiopia to enter the bloc. The move is intended to put pressure on Ethiopia to take back irregular migrants from the EU.
The EU this week announced tighter visa conditions for Ethiopians. In a series of measures, people from Ethiopia will have to wait 45 days instead of 15 days for their EU visa to be processed, EU countries will no longer be allowed to issue multiple-entry visas, and there will be no fee waiver for Ethiopian diplomats and officials.
The changes, announced by the Council of the EU on Monday, April 29, are intended to put pressure on the East African country to cooperate in deportation procedures.
'Insufficient cooperation'
A press statement by the Council said the European Commission had decided that "cooperation by Ethiopia in the field of readmission of its nationals illegally staying in the EU is insufficient."
The statement said there had been a lack of response from the Ethiopian authorities with regard to requests from EU countries that they allow back their own citizens – both those wishing to return voluntarily and those due to be forcibly removed.
EU aims to boost deportation rates
Last year more than 83,000 people were returned to a country outside the EU. But that figure represents a small proportion – 19 percent, according to the European Commission – of those who were actually ordered to leave.
One of the reasons that people cannot be removed is that their country of origin refuses to take them back. If this happens the EU Commission may decide to penalize it by refusing to grant visas or making it more difficult to obtain them.
In 2021, the EU imposed the same set of sanctions on Gambia. "No migration policy can function without the effective return of those who don’t have the right to stay. All countries have an obligation under international law to the readmission of their own nationals," Slovenia’s then interior minister, Aleš Hojs, was quoted as saying.
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How long the visa restrictions on Ethiopia last will depend on whether Ethiopia shows progress on readmission cooperation, the Council of the EU said.
Research by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) in 2021 said there was "no hard evidence on how visa leverage can translate into better cooperation of third countries on readmission," and even that restrictive visa regimes tended to decrease return rates.
With AP