Safe THird Country

by ROMAN, 2025.12.19 - 10.50 GMT

Is the UK first ever 'safe third country' with active relocations status for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum? It looks like, for the right-wing politicians at most. But the answer is "NO". No, even in front of the fact that over 1000 people came from the EU to the UK this week again.

This week brought two crucial things relating to migration challenges all we face in Europe. First one is the EU definition of 'safe third country' (when it comes to deporting migrants coming to the EU from or via countries free from conflicts and - what's essential - fully willing to take people back from the European Union).

The other thing is something related to the "Local Return Hub F4A", which seems to be the only working methodology for voluntary returns (that entire Europe can offer to migrants from safe countries of origin). So, we got a message from the EU Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency saying we were... REJECTED.

But... Having seen the evaluation, it surprised us much. They say that 9 out of 10 criteria are all right. The only one implying rejection is lack of the 20% pre-commitment for the investment! It's nothing unusual when you do innovative startup focused on making money. But we do a social innovation startup to deal with migration crisis.

According to our real-world knowledge & field experience in migrant crisis, voluntary returns are the only way to secure the future of Europe. Europe is ready to cope with everything but migration issues. Number of migrants in Europe and round the European borders is just too big to move ahead with old methodologies.

Up to 82% of migrants can return voluntarily to the SDG8 managerial jobs in safe origin countries, when we've got that 20%. It's not much at all. £500k is almost nothing to let go a great stream of returns based on local development in the most challenging areas of Africa. Nobody but us with such a working methodology, in fact.

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