The court decision on the hot spots in Albania is a “slap” for Meloni – Migrants are being sent back to Italy –

The last 12 asylum seekers held in a new migrant center set up by Meloni’s government in Albania must be taken to Italy, an Italian court has ruled, in a major blow to the controversial deal between Rome’s far-right government and Tirana aimed at curbing of immigrant arrivals.

The decision raises questions over the feasibility and legality of EU plans, discussed on Thursday, to explore ways to set up migrant processing and detention centers outside the bloc as part of a tough new approach to immigration.

The decision by Italian judges means that the new Rome government facility is effectively empty, after four of the first group of 16 asylum seekers to arrive at the processing center were immediately sent back to Italy on Thursday.

Brothers of Italy, the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, angrily condemned the decision on social media, accusing the judges of being “politicized” who “want to abolish Italy’s borders”. We will not allow it.”

“We will appeal”

Matteo Piandendozzi, the interior minister, said: “We will appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. We will continue what Italy achieved in Albania and from there on, it will become a European law.”

The sixteen asylum seekers, who the Italian government says should eventually be returned to their “safe” countries of origin, Egypt and Bangladesh, arrived in the Albanian port of Sengin from the Italian island of Lampedusa by military vessel on Wednesday.

The deal, signed by far-right Prime Minister Meloni and her Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, sees men caught in international waters crossing from Africa to Europe detained at the center while their applications are processed.

The program, which could process applications from up to 3,000 men a month, excludes women, children and vulnerable people, who will be taken to Italy. Of the first four men returned to Italy, two were suspected of being minors and two were considered to belong to a vulnerable social group.

The remaining 12 were judged by judges in Rome to be at risk of facing violence if deported to their countries of origin, in a ruling that effectively upheld an October 4 ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The plan failed

Only migrants from a list of 22 countries that Italy has designated as “safe” can be sent to Albania. Egypt and Bangladesh are among them, but the CJEU ruled that a country outside the bloc cannot be described as safe unless its entire territory is considered safe.

Judge Luciana Sangiovanni said: “The refusal to detain people in facilities in Albania likened to Italian border or transit zones … is due to the failure to recognize the countries of origin of the detainees as ‘safe countries’.”

Opposition parties and national newspapers in Italy said the initiative, which will cost around €1bn (£830m) over five years, had already failed, noting that the government had spent €250,000 on moving the 16 of men to Albania by military vessel.

The Democratic Party said the plan had failed and that Meloni should apologise, while the More Europe party called for Piandedosi’s resignation.

An NGO network representing 160 organizations supporting people without papers called the Italy-Albania deal “inhumane, unreasonable and costly and in breach of international human rights obligations”.

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