Giorgia Meloni’s plan to make use of detention centres in Albania has confronted quite a few authorized challenges and human rights criticism.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has doubled down on her authorities’s plans to ship migrants and asylum seekers to detention centres in Albania, regardless of opposition from Italian judges and the European Union’s high court docket.
Talking at a summit in Rome alongside Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Meloni stated her right-wing authorities was “decided” to forge forward with its scheme of sending migrants and asylum seekers outdoors the EU whereas their claims are processed.
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“Actually, the protocol will work when the brand new [EU] migration and asylum pact comes into impact,” Meloni stated on Thursday, citing a authorized framework slated for 2026.
“When the migration and asylum pact comes into impact, the centres will function precisely as they need to have from the start.”
In a separate deal approved by the Albanian Parliament in February 2024, Albania agreed to carry as much as 3,000 migrants and asylum seekers at anyone time in two Italian-run processing centres situated close to the port of Shengjin.
Underneath the plan on the time, the migrants and asylum seekers can be held for intervals of a few month. It was anticipated that as much as 36,000 individuals a 12 months may very well be despatched from Italian custody to Albania over an preliminary interval of 5 years.
Based on the deal, individuals can be screened initially on board the ships that rescue them earlier than being despatched to Albania for additional screening.
The centres had been meant to be operated below Italian regulation with Italian safety and workers. Italian judges would hear the immigration instances by way of video from Rome.
The settlement was denounced by rights teams, with the Worldwide Rescue Committee describing it as “dehumanising“. Amnesty Worldwide condemned it as “unlawful and unworkable”.
As of August 1, Italy noticed 36,557 migrant arrivals in 2025. That quantity is barely up from the identical interval of 2024, however far under the 89,165 recorded over the identical time span in 2023.
Following parliamentary approval, Italy sent its first ship carrying asylum seekers and migrants — 10 males from Bangladesh and 6 from Egypt — to Albania’s Shengjin port in October 2024.
However in a short time, 4 of the lads had been recognized as “weak” and despatched again to Italy. Inside two days, the remaining 12 males had been despatched again too, after an Italian court docket dominated towards their detention.
Italy then despatched ships of asylum seekers to Albania in January and April 2025, regardless of court docket challenges.
Meloni’s plan has been mired in authorized challenges from the beginning. Italian judges have repeatedly rejected deportations from the centres, ruling that the asylum seekers’ nations of origin weren’t secure sufficient for them to be despatched again.
The instances had been referred to the European Court docket of Justice (ECJ), which had earlier established that asylum candidates couldn’t endure a fast-track process for repatriation if their dwelling nations weren’t deemed secure.
The ECJ ultimately backed Italian judges in a ruling in August, questioning Meloni’s checklist of “secure nations”.
Meloni’s authorities had issued a decree establishing a listing of 19 supposedly secure nations of origin, which incorporates Egypt and Bangladesh. Nevertheless, the EU has not labeled both as a secure nation of origin.
The ECJ stated Italy is free to determine which nations are “secure” however warned that such a designation ought to meet strict authorized requirements and permit candidates and courts to entry and problem the supporting proof.
The ECJ additionally stated a rustic won’t be labeled “secure” if it doesn’t provide enough safety to its total inhabitants, agreeing with Italian judges who had raised the identical difficulty final 12 months.
The detention services in Albania have been empty for months because of the judicial obstacles. Earlier this 12 months, a report discovered that their development value was seven occasions greater than that of an equal centre in Italy.
