THE REVISED HANDBOOK ON RETURNS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION participated in 2017 with 8 members of his staff. The analytical critique by the Ombudsman can be summarized into the handing-over of the monitoring of forced returns, by national -external, and with reliable institutional independence- mechanisms of monitoring, to FRONTEX, as a single, both executive and monitoring, body for European returns. 6. The revised Handbook on Returns of the European Commission In September 2017, the Handbook on Returns, which the European Commission had published in the year 201527, was revised28, so that specific, common guidelines towards the Member states would exist for the implementation of the procedures of the Return Directive.29 The effectiveness of the system of returns constitutes the primary goal of the revision of the Handbook. The effectiveness always constituted the explanatory reason for this initiative by the European Commission. In the revised Handbook, nevertheless, it brings upon specific results, of a quasi normative character, thus shrinking the margin of interpretation of the Directive on Returns by the authorities of the member-states. A characteristic example is constituted by the measures for detention, which, in general, in the Handbook, are systematically organised from the point of view of preconditions, so that a wide margin of discretion should not remain in the member states to decide about their implementation, despite the fact that, according to the Directive30, detention is an exception when other, less onerous, alternative measures do not apply. A basic precondition for detention is the risk of absconding.31 It presupposes an individualised assessment based on objective criteria that must be foreseen in law according to the 27 C  (2015) 6250- https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/europeanagenda-migration/proposal-implementation-package/docs/return_handbook_en.pdf 28 27th September 2017 (Commission Recommendation No. C (2017) 6505)-https://ec.europa.eu/ home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/20170927_ recommendation_on_establishing_a_common_return_handbook_annex_en.pdf 29 Directive 2008/115/EC https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32008L0115 30 Article 15 para.1 of the Return Directive 31 Article 15 para.1.a of the Return Directive 24