MCC Brussels Podcast
Discussions, event recordings, and updates from the team at MCC Brussels – the home for genuine policy deliberation about the EU and an in-depth exploration of the key issues facing Europeans.
MCC Brussels Podcast
How Patriots Forced Deportations Back onto the EU Agenda I MCC Brussels Podcast
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Brussels does not change course lightly. When it does, it is usually forced. This week, something shifted.
Jacob Reynolds is joined by Marieke Ehlers MEP and Agnieszka Kołek to dissect a rare moment where the European Parliament moved in a direction voters have been demanding for years. A tougher return regime has been backed, giving member states the tools to send illegal migrants back and reassert some control over their borders.
The Return Regime Breakthrough
On migration, something has clearly moved. After years of paralysis, the European Parliament has backed a tougher returns regime, handing member states sharper tools to send illegal migrants back and greater latitude in how they do it. The old majority cracked. The much-invoked “cordon sanitaire” was, for once, brushed aside. For voters long told that nothing could be done, it looks like a breakthrough. Whether governments will actually act on it is another matter.
The Digital Cordon Tightens
While borders may be hardening on paper, control is expanding elsewhere. Under the banner of safety and election integrity, digital regulation is becoming more aggressive and more opaque. Platforms are pushed to police speech in an environment where the rules remain deliberately unclear. The result is predictable. Overcompliance, quiet removals, and a narrowing of what can be said in the public square, especially around elections.
Foreign Policy and the Power Grab
At the same time, the institutional push to scrap national vetoes in foreign policy is gathering pace. It is presented as a technical fix, a way to make Europe act faster. In reality, it risks stripping smaller states of their ability to defend their own interests and handing more power to central institutions that face little direct accountability. The debate is no longer abstract.
00:00 Intro
01:45 Migration shift in Brussels
03:20 The return regime that changes everything
06:00 The coalition that broke the system
11:00 Why enforcement still matters
13:00 The rise of digital control
18:20 Who controls elections and truth
23:30 The fight over Europe’s future
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