New EU Strategy on voluntary returns and reintegration On 27 April 2021, the EU Commission published its first EU Strategy on voluntary return and reintegration. The strategy is envisaged by the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum as an integral policy for a common EU system for returns, and conceives actions in seven areas to increase the number of voluntary returns. If, on paper, the text recognizes voluntary return as being more efficient, cost-effective and preferable to forced return, in practice this is contradicted by several ongoing legislative proposals which make access to voluntary return more difficult. The text highlights the role of “swift and efficient return border procedures” to encourage migrants to take up voluntary returns, including for people in administrative detention and those whose asylum application is still pending. The Strategy marks an increased role for Frontex in promoting voluntary returns, by taking over the activities of the European Return and Reintegration Network and developing a common curriculum for returns counselling – and this, despite the growing scrutiny into the lack of accountability and the potential involvement of Frontex in serious human rights violations.