Court halts Italy’s contested migrant centers in Albania

ROME — Human rights groups and some analysts call Italy’s opening this week of migrant processing centers in Albania controversial and illegal. The Italian government is now appealing a court ruling against its flagship project to move migrant facilities offshore.

Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, hailed her country’s deal — signed in November 2023 but enacted this week — with neighboring Albania to process migrant asylum claims there as “courageous,” in remarks this week to Parliament.

Under the five-year deal, up to 3,000 migrants rescued by the Italian coast guard in international waters each month will be transferred to Albania. An initial screening occurs on the ships before the migrants are sent to Albania for further screening.

“Italy has set a good example by signing the Italy-Albania protocol to process a final phase on Albanian territory but under Italian and European jurisdiction,” Meloni said.

Meloni’s government argues that diverting asylum seekers to migrant centers it set up under the agreement in Albania will help fight human trafficking and permit those with a genuine right entry to the European Union.

A special immigration court in Rome ruled on Friday that it was unlawful for the government to send this first batch of 12 Egyptian and Bangladeshi migrants to Albania for processing. The court said they had to be returned to Italy because their countries of origin could not be considered safe if they were repatriated.

Kelly Petillo of the European Council on Foreign Relations told VOA there was political dissension over the controversial issue.

“There is a different push-and-pull factor in domestic legislation, and I expect the same in other countries that will look to implement these agreements,” Petillo said. “After all the political and financial investment that went into implementing this scheme, the result is that the migrants have been returned. So, I have major doubts that the implementation will be successful in any way.

“All these countries are watching and, so far, they cannot see good results.”

Petillo also referred to Britain backing away from its controversial and expensive plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as ultimately unworkable. Italy’s center-left opposition quickly called for an end to the Albania plan, saying the court ruling proves its illegality.

Meloni’s government is undaunted, though, and plans to appeal. She called the court decision “prejudiced,” suggesting she would draft new rules to rectify the issue.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier said the EU could “draw lessons” from Italy’s new migrant processing centers in Albania.

Meeting in Brussels Thursday, many EU leaders agreed to enact urgent and stricter laws to curb irregular migration and speed up migrant returns. They fear the extreme right in Europe is using the contentious migrant issue to gain political ground in elections and see outsourcing the problem as one solution.

However, activists and analysts question the traditional EU values and the legality of such mechanisms.

Elisa DePieri of Amnesty International told VOA that the Italy-Albania plan forces refugees and migrants to face longer sea journeys to Albania, where they face potentially prolonged detention and may experience an end to their right to seek asylum.

“We are very concerned that the whole system rests on automatic detention from the very beginning,” she said. “Automatic detention is arbitrary and unlawful under international law. The default position is for the respect of the right of liberty for the individual and any exception should be validated by a judge on the basis of an individual assessment.”

Davide Colombi, a researcher at the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies, speaking to Euronews, pointed to additional legal hurdles.

“This is extremely problematic,” he said. “The right to asylum is a fundamental right that cannot be suspended even in times of legally declared crisis. It is protected under EU law, under international law, which shows that this not a migration issue alone, but it is a broader rule-of-law issue.”
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