A plan to send migrants with no legal right to remain in the European Union to “return hubs” outside the bloc is rapidly moving from theory towards policy. Rwanda is emerging as a possible destination, raising a particularly interesting question for Hungary: would Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s new government support such a solution to Europe’s migration crisis? Budapest has not yet endorsed the Rwanda proposal, but its recent statements suggest it could be receptive to the idea.
Rwanda returns move to the centre of Europe’s migration crisis
Germany, Austria, Denmark, Greece and the Netherlands have been working together on the creation of return hubs outside the European Union. Representatives of the five countries recently travelled to Rwanda, where negotiations are under way over the possibility of hosting people ordered to leave EU territory.
According to Euractiv, one location being discussed is the Gashora Transit Centre, around 60 kilometres from Kigali. The facility has previously housed migrants evacuated from Libya while longer-term solutions were arranged. Rwanda has confirmed that preliminary negotiations with European governments are taking place.
The initiative has progressed quickly. The five governments have now set a target of establishing their first return-hub system by 2027, while Rwanda and Uganda are among the potential partner countries being considered. Denmark has said it hopes transfers could begin by the end of next year.
The proposal has become possible because EU migration policy itself is changing. The European Parliament approved new return rules in June allowing member states to conclude agreements with non-EU countries and transfer people who have received a return decision to facilities there. Unaccompanied minors are excluded, while partner states would have to respect international human rights standards and the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits sending people somewhere they face persecution or serious harm.
Importantly, this is not identical to the controversial British Rwanda scheme abandoned in 2024. The emerging EU model is primarily aimed at people who have already been found to have no legal right to remain in the EU, rather than simply moving asylum processing abroad.
Even so, considerable legal and humanitarian questions remain. The UN Refugee Agency has argued that return hubs should be used only where a person has undergone a full and fair asylum procedure and direct return to their country of origin is not possible within a reasonable period. The Council of Europe has also called for strict independent monitoring and legally enforceable human-rights guarantees.
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Britain already tried Rwanda – and it failed. But Europe’s new plan is different
The obvious question is whether Europe is now repeating an experiment that has already failed.
Britain agreed its controversial Rwanda scheme in 2022, planning to relocate certain people who had arrived irregularly in the UK to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. In practice, however, the policy never became operational on the scale intended.
In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the scheme was unlawful in its existing form because of the risk that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda could ultimately be returned to countries where they faced persecution or inhumane treatment. The Conservative government subsequently negotiated a new treaty with Kigali and passed legislation declaring Rwanda a safe country, but the planned deportation flights still did not take place before the government changed.
According to the British Home Office, during more than two years of the programme only four people travelled to Rwanda voluntarily, while no asylum seekers were forcibly relocated under the scheme. The Labour government discontinued the policy after taking office in July 2024.
The emerging European proposal, however, is different in one crucial respect. The British scheme was designed largely for people whose asylum applications would not be considered in the UK and would instead be processed in Rwanda. The EU return-hub concept is primarily intended for people who have already received a return decision and therefore no longer have a legal right to remain in the European Union.
That distinction could make the European model easier to defend politically and legally. Rather than outsourcing the asylum procedure itself, return hubs would be intended as destinations for people whom EU governments have already decided must leave – particularly in cases where returning them directly to their country of origin proves difficult.
The British experience nevertheless provides a warning. Any European system involving Rwanda or another third country is likely to face intense scrutiny over human rights safeguards, legal responsibility and the risk of unlawful onward deportations.
Péter Magyar’s government has kept Hungary’s tough migration policy
The question for Hungary is particularly significant because the change of government in May did not bring the major reversal in migration policy that some foreign observers might have expected.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar said this week that, while individual measures introduced by Viktor Orbán’s previous government could be debated, Hungary had been fundamentally right in its assessment of migration. He specifically backed both the southern border fence and the country’s strict migration rules.
Magyar also said there could be no relaxation of Hungarian asylum regulations and that his government wanted to ensure that not “one more” irregular migrant entered the country. At the same time, he is seeking an agreement with Brussels rather than another prolonged confrontation over EU migration rules.
That stance is important for understanding how Budapest might approach the latest migration crisis proposal.
Interior Minister Gábor Pósfai has repeatedly said since the new government took office that Hungary’s position on irregular migration remains unchanged. In July, his ministry also revealed that Hungary was closely monitoring the practical experience of Italy’s controversial agreement with Albania – another attempt to handle aspects of migration outside normal EU territory.
Then, following renewed migration pressure at the EU’s external border in August, the Hungarian government explicitly called for “innovative policy tools” going beyond existing solutions, while stressing stronger external border protection and action against abuses of the asylum system.
Hungary has also discussed the support of returns directly with Austria, one of the five countries now pushing the return-hub initiative.
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Could Hungary support the Rwanda return hubs?
Taken together, those positions provide a credible basis for believing that the Magyar government could support return hubs in principle.
Such a policy fits several elements of Budapest’s current approach: preventing irregular entry, maintaining strict asylum rules, strengthening the EU’s external borders and making it easier to remove people who have no right to stay.
It could also be politically easier for Magyar to support than parts of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact involving solidarity between member states. Sending people with final return decisions outside the EU is fundamentally different from requiring Hungary to receive asylum seekers transferred from another member state – something Budapest has strongly resisted.
However, there is an important distinction between saying the Hungarian government would probably find the concept attractive and saying it supports Rwanda specifically. Hungary is not currently part of the five-country initiative, and neither Magyar nor Pósfai has publicly committed Budapest to the Rwanda negotiations.
What happens next?
The next few months should provide a clearer answer. The five participating governments are expected to continue negotiations with potential host countries, with another meeting planned in Munich in September and concrete agreements targeted before the end of 2026.
For Hungary, much will depend on the final legal and financial structure. If return hubs remain voluntary, comply with EU and international law and do not require Hungary to accept migrants from other member states, the proposal would sit comfortably with much of the migration policy the Magyar government has outlined so far.
That makes Hungarian support a plausible scenario – but not yet a government position. The Rwanda debate may therefore become one of the first major tests of how much Hungary’s approach to Europe’s migration crisis has really changed under Péter Magyar: less confrontational towards Brussels, perhaps, but not necessarily more permissive on migration.
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