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An Italian immigration judge has rejected Giorgia Meloni’s latest bid to detain Europe-bound asylum seekers in Albania and referred the Italian prime minister’s landmark initiative to the EU’s top court.
The judge ruled that seven Bangladeshi and Egyptian men brought to Albania by an Italian warship on Friday must be taken to Italy and cannot be detained in the western Balkan country while they await a decision on their asylum application.
The Italian court also asked the European Court of Justice to weigh in on the legality of the overall programme, in particular whether Rome’s recent designation of 19 countries as safe for quick returns is in compliance with EU law.
The decision increases the uncertainty over the future of Meloni’s controversial plan to deter people from trying to reach Europe from across the Mediterranean with the threat that they could be detained in Albania before being quickly returned home.
Questions about the viability of the initiative have loomed since last month, when the first group of 16 migrants ferried to the Italian-run centres in Albania all had to be transported to Italy within days, due to their youth, poor health, and an earlier court ruling rejecting their detention.
In response to Monday’s ruling, Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister, declared the court’s decision was “not against the government, but against the Italian people and their security”. Meloni did not immediately comment.
The outcome of the case could have repercussions well beyond Italy. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other European leaders all see Meloni’s initiative as a potential model for dealing with their own crises, as they struggle to deal with irregular migrant inflows into their advanced economies.
Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced last year that they had reached a deal for Rome to hold up to 3,000 irregular migrants rescued from the Mediterranean in two holding centres in Albania, during an expedited asylum claim procedure.
The scheme was designed to try to comply with international refugee law and avoid the pitfalls that undermined the UK’s troubled Rwanda migration deal.
Only healthy, adult men from countries that Rome deems “safe” for return would be taken to Albania, and their claims would be reviewed by Italian authorities. Those whose asylum claims were deemed genuine would be permitted to go to Italy.
But Meloni’s government and Italian judges have clashed over Rome’s designation of various countries — including Bangladesh and Egypt — as sufficiently “safe” for their citizens to be detained while their asylum claims are considered.
Meloni has publicly argued that governments — not judges — must have the authority to decide which countries are safe.
However, the Italian court noted on Monday that the “criteria for designating a state as a safe country of origin are established by EU law” and said that judges must “always and concretely verify” whether decisions of national governments are a “correct application” of EU law.
Meloni — who came to power pledging to curb irregular migrant inflows into Italy — has hoped to cycle up to 36,000 migrants though the Albanian centres annually, at an estimated cost of €800mn over five years, to ease pressure on Italy’s own migrant reception centres, and deter people from undertaking the dangerous Mediterranean crossing from north Africa.
But many critics see the scheme as no more than a costly piece of political theatre to demonstrate Meloni’s commitment to battling irregular immigration, while arrivals remain high.
“It’s incredibly expensive — the centres have cost the country an enormous amount just to be set up,” said Daniele Albertazzi, an Italian politics expert at the University of Surrey. “But it’s a way of showing the right-wing electorate that you are doing something.”
While the latest ruling is an embarrassment, Albertazzi said Meloni would probably turn the court’s rejection of the Albania initiative to her advantage, portraying her initiative as the casualty of a highly politicised judicial system.
“She can say, ‘I’m doing my best but because the magistrates are leftwing, we have a battle on our hands,’” he said. “It will allow her to play the part of the victim and say the usual elites are stopping the people from having what they want.”