Italy's offshore migrant plan hits wall: Court battles put Albania deal on hold
Italyʼs first-of-its-kind deal with Albania to process migrants offshore faces major legal obstacles. Two attempts to transfer asylum-seekers failed after courts questioned the programs legality and EU compliance
Last fall Giorgia Meloni made a ground-breaking deal with Albania: sending migrants there for asylum processing (a never-before-tried approach in EU)
The plan hit serious road-blocks when courts stepped in. Two groups of migrants — first 16 then 8 people from Egypt and Bangladesh — couldnt be processed in Albania because judges said these countries werent safe-enough. The facilities (which can hold up-to 1200 people) sit empty while legal battles continue
Matteo Piantedosi Italys Interior Minister got into a heated back-and-forth with judges after they blocked the transfers. The government quickly made a list of 19 safe-countries but that didnt help
These judges need to go
The programs cost is eye-catching — about 297 euros per-person daily compared to just 33 euros in Italy. Research shows it could only handle about 2% of incoming migrants making it both costly and not-so-effective
Other EU countries are watching closely. Ursula von der Leyen supports similar ideas and Germany might try something like this soon. The UK already tried sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda but their courts said no
- Migration to EU dropped from 390k in 2016 to 100k in 2020
- Numbers went up again reaching 293k last year
- This year shows 189k arrivals so far
The whole thing is now stuck waiting for the European Court of Justice to decide if its ok under EU rules. Meanwhile Italy needs about 120k workers yearly until 2028 to keep its economy going which makes the situation extra-complicated
