Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s five-year deal to send migrants rescued at sea to camps in Albania for processing has been dealt a major blow by the courts, just days after the first arrivals.
A special immigration court in Rome ruled that the 12 migrants sent to the camp in Gjader, not far from the Adriatic coast in northern Albania, should be returned to Italy because they came from countries believed to be unsafe to return to.
Meloni’s deal with Albania has sparked widespread interest among Western allies and the Italian government has said it will challenge the ruling.
“It is not for the judiciary to say which countries are safe – it is for the government,” she told reporters.
She has called a cabinet meeting for next Monday.
Although the EU says irregular migration has fallen this year – down 64% this year via the Central Mediterranean route – governments across Europe are under pressure to curb arrivals.
Italy’s agreement with Albania aims to process and then repatriate about 3,000 illegal migrants rescued from the Mediterranean every month in two camps.
But the estimated cost of €800m (£666m) has drawn criticism from opposition leaders such as the Democratic Party’s Elly Schlein, who said it could have been spent on healthcare.
The deal does not include women or children, and the first group of men arrived in Albania on Wednesday aboard an Italian navy ship, three days after they were part of a group of 85 people picked up at sea.
There were ten men from Bangladesh and six from Egypt on board the Libra, but that number was quickly reduced from sixteen to twelve after health screenings revealed two were children and two were vulnerable.
On Friday, judges in Rome decided that the rest of the migrants should also be sent back to Italy, even though their asylum applications had been rejected. The judges ruled that it was impossible to recognize their countries of origin as ‘safe countries’.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the government would appeal the case, stressing that Italy’s migrant camp plan would become European law within two years.
The current European law was issued just two weeks ago by the European Court of Justice, which said that a country can only be considered safe if “persecution… torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is never applied”.
Italy’s deal with Albania is being closely watched elsewhere in Europe, including in Britain. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he had discussed the ‘concept’ of the Italian deal with Meloni last month.
EU leaders agreed at a summit on Thursday that the return of irregular migrants should be accelerated.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said new proposals were being worked on, and she argued that migrants in need of protection could receive it in “safe third countries”.
In a separate development, the Dutch government has run into problems with its own migrant plan, involving a so-called return hub for rejected asylum seekers.
The idea of sending asylum seekers to Uganda was first mooted by Reinette Klever, Foreign Trade Minister of the far-right Freedom Party, during a visit to East Africa.
The plan appeared to surprise Prime Minister Dick Schoof at the EU summit, although he said it was an “innovative solution”.
And on Friday it became clear that it was also news for the Ugandan government. “We have not discussed anything about the Netherlands sending refugees to Uganda, we have not done that,” Foreign Minister Jeje Odongo told Dutch radio.
“If there is a proposal to do that, we will look at it on a case-by-case basis.”
