CHIȘINĂU — European interior ministers will debate plans to send rejected asylum seekers to third-country return hubs at a Council of Europe meeting in Chișinău, Moldova, on Friday. Ministers are expected to announce a political declaration that will stress countries' rights to control their borders following claims that human rights laws have impeded the removal of foreign criminals and unwanted asylum seekers.

It is the first time that ministers at the council have discussed hubs. The declaration is expected to curb the ways that asylum seekers can use Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to resist removal, though it will not be legally binding.

"The discussion about hubs was an important element. We all know that it has been discussed in different countries. It will be discussed at a multilateral level," Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset said. "It is progress, in the sense that we are able to address political elements [that were previously] discussed at a national level. So hubs will be discussed and we will need to see how it is possible to implement this."

Berset also pointed to the limits of any new arrangement. "We are dealing with human beings on European soil. That means [they are] also protected by the European court, the European convention of human rights. That is decisive," he said.

The British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, is expected to attend the meeting. Keir Starmer's government has attempted to set up return hubs after the rise of Reform UK in the polls, and UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs in November that the Home Office was in active negotiations with several countries, though no deals have been confirmed.

The EU has voted to allow the possibility of return hubs, with Denmark, Austria, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands involved in talks with possible destinations. Discussions have reportedly centred on 12 possible countries: Rwanda, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Egypt, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Montenegro and Ethiopia. A group of nine European countries, including Italy and Denmark, issued an open letter calling for greater national control over migration policies.

The previous government's plans to send people arriving by small boats to Rwanda cost £715m by 2024 and were cancelled after failing to send a single person to the central African country. The Supreme Court ruled that the policy was unlawful because Rwanda was not a safe country. According to Eurostat, over the seven years to 2023, between 450,000 and 500,000 third-country nationals were ordered to leave the EU each year, but fewer than half did so.

"Proposals to send people to detention centres in other countries risk being hugely expensive, difficult to make work, and unlikely to fix the deeper problems in the system," said Imran Hussain, director of external affairs at the Refugee Council. "In practice, far more people return voluntarily than by locking up people in detention centres before putting them in handcuffs and onto planes. Supporting voluntary returns is more cost-effective, avoids lengthy detention, and allows resources to be focused on speeding up decisions and supporting local communities under pressure."