Twelve months ago, Giorgia Meloni’s government signed a protocol with Albania to establish two Italian “asylum centers” on the southeast European country’s territory. One, located at the port of Shëngjin, serves as the initial screening point for migrants rescued by Italian ships on the high seas. The second, in Gjadër, has a twenty-eight-day time frame to process asylum applications from migrants originating from so-called safe countries. It detains those whose asylum claims are denied, pending their repatriation.
This experiment in offshoring asylum processes to a non-EU third country has stirred the interest of leaders across Europe. German chancellor Olaf Scholz, British prime minister Keir Starmer, and European commissioner Ursula von der Leyen are among those watching closely, curious to see how this Italian initiative will unfold. Yet Prime Minister Meloni’s ambition to transform the two centers in Albania into a hub for processing thousands of irregular migrants is now clouded in uncertainty. An Italian court has intervened, ruling against the detention of the first sixteen migrants — Egyptian and Bangladeshi nationals — brought to the newly established centers. This decision complicates Meloni’s plans and hints at a coming conflict between her government and the judiciary, raising questions about whether such policies can withstand the scrutiny of the European legal system.
But what is really at stake in this conflict? To grasp this, we have to look at the Italian far right’s vision of immigration. The Italia-Albania protocol is yet another effort to tighten deterrent measures against irregular maritime arrivals. But in this context the word “maritime” has greater significance in than “irregular.” The…
Auteur: Giuliano Fleri
