The European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) held an extraordinary evening session in Strasbourg on 9 March 2026 and voted to endorse a sweeping overhaul of the EU’s rules on returning third-country nationals who do not have legal right to remain in the Union. The draft report, led by Dutch MEP Malik Azmani, would repeal the 2008 Return Directive and replace the current patch-work of national practices with a single, harmonised procedure that all member states—including Poland—will be obliged to follow. Under the proposal, national authorities would use one streamlined administrative decision to end a person’s legal stay and launch the return process, shortening today’s multi-step system and reducing the scope for lengthy appeals. Member states would gain new tools—such as EU-wide entry bans connected to the Schengen Information System—to ensure that people who ignore departure orders cannot simply move to a neighbouring country.
![EU Parliament Committee Backs New Return System for Irregular Migrants]()
Whether you’re an employer trying to protect foreign staff from inadvertent status lapses or an individual concerned about maintaining lawful stay, VisaHQ can simplify the process with real-time Polish visa information, personalised alerts and end-to-end application support—all accessible at https://www.visahq.com/poland/
At the same time, MEPs inserted safeguards requiring individual assessments and guaranteed access to basic services while return is being prepared, bowing to concerns voiced by civil-society groups. For Poland, the reform would mean rewriting sections of the Foreigners Act and the Law on Protection of the State Border. Border Guard officers would issue the new «integrated return decision» at road, rail and airport checkpoints, while the Office for Foreigners would have to connect its case-management IT to the upgraded EU Return Case Management System. Warsaw’s business community is watching closely because the proposal clarifies that holders of valid work permits who lose their jobs will retain a 60-day grace period to find new employment before a return order can be issued—an important buffer for multinational firms rotating staff into Polish subsidiaries. Negotiations with the Council are expected to start once the full Parliament rubber-stamps the committee mandate later this month. Given the political momentum behind a tougher—but faster and fairer—return regime, lawyers advise HR and mobility teams to audit foreign-talent pipelines now, ensure that staff data are complete in case they need to prove legal stay quickly, and prepare for a more digitised, deadline-driven compliance landscape.
Whether you’re an employer trying to protect foreign staff from inadvertent status lapses or an individual concerned about maintaining lawful stay, VisaHQ can simplify the process with real-time Polish visa information, personalised alerts and end-to-end application support—all accessible at https://www.visahq.com/poland/
At the same time, MEPs inserted safeguards requiring individual assessments and guaranteed access to basic services while return is being prepared, bowing to concerns voiced by civil-society groups. For Poland, the reform would mean rewriting sections of the Foreigners Act and the Law on Protection of the State Border. Border Guard officers would issue the new «integrated return decision» at road, rail and airport checkpoints, while the Office for Foreigners would have to connect its case-management IT to the upgraded EU Return Case Management System. Warsaw’s business community is watching closely because the proposal clarifies that holders of valid work permits who lose their jobs will retain a 60-day grace period to find new employment before a return order can be issued—an important buffer for multinational firms rotating staff into Polish subsidiaries. Negotiations with the Council are expected to start once the full Parliament rubber-stamps the committee mandate later this month. Given the political momentum behind a tougher—but faster and fairer—return regime, lawyers advise HR and mobility teams to audit foreign-talent pipelines now, ensure that staff data are complete in case they need to prove legal stay quickly, and prepare for a more digitised, deadline-driven compliance landscape.
