Most of the people at this detention centre in Tripoli will be repatriated. Less than a third of economic migrants who are told to leave the EU are removed

Europe’s failure to send home rejected asylum seekers is worsening the migrant crisis, senior figures in Brussels believe.

An economic migrant who survives the journey across the Mediterranean has a 73 per cent chance of remaining in the EU even if served with an order to leave, official statistics show.

Less than a third of those told to leave are removed, creating an incentive for economic migrants to join refugees striving to reach Europe.

The latest figures for migrant arrivals show a surge from African and Asian countries with historically lower rates of recognition of refugee status than states such as Syria and Eritrea, suggesting that many people may be moving for economic reasons.

One EU diplomat working on migration said: “The inability of EU…