Italy’s much-debated program to send asylum seekers to Albania resumed on Sunday, the Italian interior ministry said, months after judges blocked the first transfer there.
An Italian navy ship was transporting 49 people to Italian centers in Albania, the ministry said. The ministry spokesman added that those being transferred were intercepted at sea before reaching Italy.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called the idea of ​​keeping new asylum seekers out of the country a key policy of her administration, to fight illegal immigration and prevent migrants from making the dangerous journey by boat across the Mediterranean. It is a modern method.
Ms Maloney restarted the program after being removed from jurisdiction by judges in Rome who had ruled against the initial conversion. The decision cast doubt on the future of the program. Those judges said the 12 migrants Italy sent to Albania in October were ineligible for the program because the countries they came from, Bangladesh and Egypt, might not be considered safe.
Since then, Ms Maloney’s government has also drawn up a new list of countries it considers safe. Interior Ministry officials did not provide a list of the countries the migrants came from but said they were from countries considered safe.
The plan has been condemned by human rights groups and the Italian opposition, who have called it cruel and excessively expensive. But some politicians across Europe, including from mainstream parties, see it as a potential model for migration policy at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise. The president of the European Union’s executive arm, Ursula van der Leyen, called it “an example of outward thinking based on a fair sharing of responsibilities with third countries”.
The decision by judges in Rome to block the transfer sparked a bitter row between Ms Meloni and the Italian judiciary. Italian judges, including Rome judges, have asked. The European Court of Justice to clarify, among other issues, who determines what is a safe country. The court is expected to hear the case next month.
In Italy, the question of whether migrants can be kept in Albania has now been transferred to the Court of Appeal in Rome.
While the outcome of the effort to reinstate the policy is uncertain, Ms. Maloney has made it clear that she intends to pursue it one way or another.
“Trust me, the centers in Albania will work,” he said at a gathering of his party in Rome last month. “Even if I have to spend every night on this case, from now until the fall of this Italian government.”
Elisabetta Povoledo Cooperation reporting.
