The Italian asylum centers in Albania, a key component of Meloni’s migration policy, continue to be the subject of legal battles. These centers are intended to ensure that clearly unfounded asylum claims by Mediterranean migrants are processed quickly and that the migrants can be directly returned to their countries of origin. The project, praised as an innovative approach by the EU Commission and closely monitored, has yet to make significant progress. First, construction was delayed. And when the centers were finally completed last summer, Italy’s judiciary opposed the plan. Courts twice rejected the detention of migrants in the closed centers. However, the government remained undeterred, changed judicial jurisdiction by decree, and transferred a third group of 49 migrants from Lampedusa to Albania.
Meloni’s government felt emboldened by a recent ruling from the country’s Supreme Court, which seemingly granted the administration more leeway. Yet, even on the third attempt, the plan failed. The Court of Appeals in Rome still considers the legal situation unclear and, as in the previous two cases, referred the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). According to media reports, the ECJ is expected to issue a fundamental ruling on February 25 regarding the Italian authorities’ approach.
The migrants, who were picked up by the Italian navy and financial police in international waters off the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in mid-January and then taken to Albania, are mostly from Bangladesh, with a few from Egypt, Ivory Coast, and Gambia. The government in Rome has designated a total of 19 countries as safe. According to Meloni’s cabinet, adult male migrants should be deported to these countries once it is determined in the Albanian camps that they are not vulnerable. Five of the original 49 migrants who arrived in Albania on January 28 were minors, one was ill, so six men had already been transferred to Bari during the week. Now, the camps in Shëngjin and Gjadër, whose construction and operation for an initial five-year period are estimated to cost the Italian government €650 million, remain empty once again.
In concrete terms, the judges had only to examine the detention orders of the migrants held in Albania. Except for one case, their asylum applications had already been rejected as manifestly unfounded by the responsible authorities. Following the court ruling, the migrants were transferred from Albania to Italy, where they will await the expiration of their appeal period. The ruling comes at a time when tensions between the judiciary and the government have reached a new peak. Recently, it was revealed that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other government officials have been reported to authorities because Italian authorities released the head of Libya’s criminal police, wanted by the International Criminal Court, after his arrest and flew him to Tripoli on a government aircraft.
Despite this third legal defeat and harsh criticism from the opposition, Meloni has vowed that her government will stick to the “Albania model” to deter illegal migrants with no asylum prospects. Whether further migrants will be transferred to Shëngjin and Gjadër before the ECJ in Luxembourg delivers its landmark ruling on February 25 regarding the designation of safe countries of origin remains uncertain. In all three cases, Italian judges referred to a preliminary ECJ ruling from early October 2024, stating that a country of origin can only be considered safe by one of the 27 EU member states if this applies to its entire territory. Neither individual EU states nor the European Commission in Brussels maintain a unified list of safe countries of origin.
It is evident that Meloni is determined to continue her battle against the judiciary, including in the case of the asylum centers in Albania. The latest court ruling was met with a combative response from government officials. According to media reports, the government is already considering new legislative measures to finally get the centers operational.
Meloni reacted to the third ruling against the “Albania model” with fierce attacks in videos she shared on social media. In the videos, a highly defiant Meloni insists that she will “neither be intimidated nor blackmailed” and that she will continue on her path “with her head held high and without fear.” She challenged her opponents in the judiciary, saying that if they wanted to govern and implement leftist policies, they should run for elected office instead of using their positions as prosecutors and judges to act against the majority will of the electorate.
