An Italian court has invalidated the detention in Albanian centers of the first twelve asylum seekers that Rome transferred there this week, sources confirmed to Agence France-Presse on Friday, October 18. The court cited a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice on countries of origin considered as “sure” by the host countries, according to which the twelve immigrants in question, from Bangladesh and Egypt, do not meet the detention criteria provided for by the agreement between Rome and Tirana.
The government of Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right party Fratelli d’Italia, signed an agreement with the Albanian government at the end of 2023 that provides for the creation of two centers in Albania, from where migrants rescued in the Mediterranean will be able to apply for asylum. . This five-year agreement, whose cost to Italy is estimated at €160 million a year, concerns adult men intercepted by the Italian navy or coast guard in their search and rescue zone in international waters.
The procedure provides for a first check on board a military ship, before a transfer to a center in northern Albania, in the port of Shëngjin, for identification, and then to a second center, in a former military base in Gjadër. .
Fratelli d’Italia attacks the magistrates
The first sixteen migrants arrived in Albania on Wednesday, but four of them were immediately returned to Italy, two claimed to be minors and two others needed medical treatment. “The media spectacle organized by the Meloni government collides with national and international law”welcomed the NGO Sea-Watch Italia on the social network
The party of M.me Meloni, on the other hand, protested against this judicial decision, calling it” absurd “ in X. “Some politicized magistrates have decided that there are no safe countries of origin: it is impossible to repatriate those who enter illegally, it is prohibited to repatriate illegal immigrants. “They want to abolish the borders of Italy, we will not allow it”adds Fratelli d’Italia. The League, the anti-immigration party of the vice president of the government, Matteo Salvini, for its part denounced a decision “unacceptable and serious” and attacked the magistrates “pro-immigrant”inviting them to “run for election”.
