The European Commission has proposed a strategy to increase “effective returns” and speed up their process, the EU Commission announced in a statement. The strategy is based on four points: targeted actions on immediate needs, including joint return operations in defined third countries; accelerating the return process; promoting return counselling and reintegration; and the digitalisation of return management. Today, Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson will meet with the EU Return Coordinator, Mari Juritsch. The strategy will be discussed at the Informal Justice and Home Affairs Council that will take place this week. According to the Commission, an effective and common EU system for returns is “a central pillar of well-functioning and credible migration and asylum systems, as well as of the comprehensive approach of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum”. This return system “should also serve as a deterrent to help reduce unsafe and irregular migration”, the EU Commission added.