Giorgia Meloni is at an apparent dead end in her efforts to continue with her plan to deport migrants to Albania due to legal obstacles posed by the courts. However, The Italian Prime Minister is determined to move forward. Among other reasons, because it feels supported by Brussels and by many EU countries that view its initiative favorably: to last week’s meeting in the Belgian capital to explain its model Representatives from 11 member states and the president of the European Commission herself, Ursula von der Leyen, attended.
Although the first trial has failed, with 16 migrants deported last week who ended up arriving in Italy anyway, Meloni believes that the door to deportations has already been opened. Now, it is simply a matter of persevering and perfecting the mechanism with the legal reforms that are necessary. And that is it: in a Council of Ministers meeting this Monday afternoon, it has approved a decree law that reaffirms its criteria for rapid deportation protocols and with which it hopes to be able to force the judges to validate the next transfer to Albania. Among other things, it has reduced from 22 to 19 the countries that Italy considers safe and whose citizens, therefore, can apply the rapid protocol with deportation and subsequent repatriation. Cameroon, Colombia and Nigeria have fallen from the list. But all the others remain, including those with the highest number of arrivals to Italy.
According to the Italian media, another ship with a new group will set sail next week, as soon as new rescues occur and weather conditions allow it. However, according to jurists, the decree law will not change anything, as the courts have limited themselves to applying a recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU, which is binding, and a second transfer is likely to fail again. This resolution indicated that if in a country there is an area where human rights are not respected, or there is a group that suffers discrimination, the entire country should be considered unsafe. This was the case of Bangladesh and Egypt, the nationality of the 12 migrants interned in Albania, and for that reason the Court of Rome ordered their transfer to Italy. And it was the case, in total, of 15 of the 22 countries considered safe by Italy, which is why this European ruling shook the entire system of deportations to Albania.
However, the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, who had defined the ruling of the Court of Rome as “abnormal”, argued this Monday after the Council of Ministers that the European resolution “has not been well understood.” If the opposition had already asked for his resignation and the magistrate had criticized his words, his new statements do not seem to be going to calm things down. He has assured that the judges may not have understood the European ruling well, because “it is very complicated and is written in French.”
In the opinion of the minister, “the core of the sentence is that the judge, at the moment he makes his ruling, must say in an exhaustive and complete manner, what are the reasons why, for an individual, a certain country is not safe.” ”. In that sense, he pointed out that the Italian ruling was incomplete and not argued. That is to say, the Government’s line is that it must be analyzed case by case individually, and it would not be enough to simply come from a country considered unsafe.
Nordio also pointed out that the deported migrants did not have documentation, therefore their nationality is “uncertain,” and a judge cannot decide on their country of origin with guarantees. This is a key point in the Albania model. Precisely, as reported by the parliamentary delegation that visited the migrants at the Gjadër internment camp, one of the main criteria for selecting the deportees, after the rescue at sea, was the fact that they did not have a passport. Because this increased the chances of expelling them and facilitated their insertion into the rapid protocol, although the migrants claimed that their passports had been stolen in Libya.
With this decree law, a norm of higher rank than the one in force until now, which was a decree of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in coordination with the Ministry of Justice and Interior, Meloni hopes to protect the Government’s criteria and that the judges will have to accept its guidelines. Nordio has assured that judges may not apply an administrative act, “a secondary rule, but not a primary law.” “If the list of safe countries is inscribed in a law, the judge cannot not apply it,” he maintained. We will have to see then what happens with the next deportation. If it is a matter of interpretations, the divergences of point of view may continue to exist and, ultimately, the clash between Meloni and the judges may escalate.
Amid criticism from the opposition for a deportation plan that he already considers failed and illegal, The Five Star Movement has denounced the Government before the Court of Auditors, for the enormous investment involved in building a reception camp and another internment camp in Albania (800 million in five years and a first transfer that cost about 18,000 euros for each one. the 16 migrants). The Pope and the Italian Church have also clearly positioned themselves against the Albania model. The vice president of the Italian bishops, Francesco Savino, said on Sunday that “migrants are brothers and sisters with their dignity, not packages to be thrown from one place to another.” And this Monday, Francisco warned that You cannot “close the door to immigrants.” “The migrant must be welcomed, accompanied and integrated,” he stressed in a video message addressed to an assembly of Italian Catholic Action.
The far-right Executive has harshly attacked the courts these days, with the accusation of arrogating to themselves powers that do not correspond to them, and insists that they cannot be the ones who set foreign policy – in this case which countries can be considered safe a priori to be able to retain at the border those of its citizens who request asylum, in the event that it will be rejected. The tension in the atmosphere is already reminiscent of the days of Silvio Berlusconi and his attacks on judges, to whom he attributed ideological hatred and conspiracies to overthrow him, against the popular will. Identical arguments are repeated.
The judiciary responds that the courts only apply the laws, which is what should be changed in any case. This is what Meloni is going to try, with an uncertain result, because In reality, according to jurists, it is the European rules that should be modified. Meloni’s conviction to insist on his plan is also due to the fact that The Commission itself has announced its intention to review all the regulations regarding which countries can be considered safeto facilitate deportations. The Government has repeated that what Italy is doing will soon be done throughout the EU, starting with the entry into force of the European Immigration Pact in 2026.
The key to the confrontation between the far-right Executive and the Italian courts is at that point; in what is considered a safe country, which, therefore, can be a priori repatriate a person who requests asylum, because there are no reasons that justify accepting their request. This is a fundamental piece of the scheme in the controversial rapid protocol for border detention, management and rejection of asylum applications that Italy approved in March 2023 and that it wants to apply in Albania.
To apply this accelerated procedure, Italy established a list of 22 safe countries, whose citizens can be deported to Albania, because their asylum requests are expected to be rejected. However, a recent October 4 ruling by the EU Court of Justice effectively trimmed that list, leaving safe countries at just seven. This has dire consequences for the Albania model: The main States of origin of immigration arriving through the Mediterranean, such as Bangladesh, Egypt or Tunisia, are dropped from the list. That is to say, it practically condemned the deportation plan to closure.
For the rest, the legal obstacle could be seen coming, because the courts of Palermo and Catania, in Sicily, where most of the requests are processed, have already rejected 90% of the requests for validation of retention in the last year and a half. on border. Now, the Government once again reaffirms its list of safe countries, and we will have to see what the courts do regarding the next deportation.
The list of 19 countries of origin now considered safe by Italy is as follows: Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Morocco, Montenegro , Peru, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia. On the other hand, according to the criteria of the European ruling applied by the Court of Rome, only Cape Verde, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania would be safe.
