All 46 Council of Europe Members Sign Declaration on Border Control and Third-Country Return Hubs

All 46 members of the Council of Europe signed a political declaration on 15 May 2026 in Chișinău, Moldova, that explicitly endorses plans to send rejected asylum seekers to third-country return hubs. The seven-page declaration states that states have an undeniable sovereign right to control their borders.

It adds that countries should be free to address and potentially deter irregular migration, listing processing requests for international protection in a third country, third-country return hubs, and cooperation with countries of transit as envisaged new approaches.

The declaration attempts to give more scope for countries to deport people to places where they may face inhuman or degrading treatment and to limit courts’ powers to intervene. It states that caution should be exercised when assessing whether the expulsion or extradition of an individual to a non-state party would violate obligations under article 3 of the convention.

Yvette Cooper attended the Council of Europe foreign ministers’ meeting in Moldova and participated in the document signing ceremony on 15 May 2026.

The UK is seeking a deal with an unnamed third country for return hubs similar to the Italy-Albania agreement. Italy’s agreement with Albania initially placed detention centres in Albania for asylum seekers from safe countries while applications were processed.

Giorgia Meloni’s government has since used the Italian hubs in Albania to hold people whose asylum applications have been rejected for deportation.

The UK Labour government scrapped the Conservatives’ deal to send migrants crossing the Channel to Rwanda. A Strasbourg judge issued an 11th-hour decision in 2022 that grounded the Rwanda deportation flights. Britain’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the Rwanda deal was unlawful because Rwanda was not a safe third country.

More than 200,000 migrants are thought to have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel since 2018. The previous UK government’s Rwanda plans cost £715m by 2024 and did not result in a single person being sent to Rwanda. Shabana Mahmood told MPs in November that the Home Office was in active negotiations with several countries about return hubs but no deals had been confirmed.

The EU has voted to allow the possibility of return hubs. Denmark, Austria, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands are involved in talks on return hubs. Discussions have reportedly centred on 11 countries: Rwanda, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Egypt, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Ethiopia.

Montenegro has denied reports that it is considering housing refused asylum seekers. " Berset added that discussions about removing people who arrived in Europe by irregular routes would take place during the conference at a multilateral level. " He stated the convention is 75 years old but has never been static and has shown its ability to adapt and respond to new challenges.

Prof Eirik Bjorge KC said: "Article 3 is an embodiment of the very object and purpose of the convention and as such cannot be modified through political declarations.