The European People’s Party (EPP) advances on its path of rapprochement with the extreme right. The conservatives have supported this Wednesday in the European Parliament a non-binding resolution that supports the creation of deportation camps for asylum seekers outside the European Union, such as those that Italy has created in Albania, promoted by its prime minister, the far-right Giorgia Meloni. The EPP, which had already endorsed the idea at its congress in Bucharest and last week before the summit of European leaders, insists on the measure despite the blow that the Italian justice system has given the Albania model when it has barely started walking. The conservatives voted almost en bloc, so the Spanish Popular Party has also supported the controversial measure, despite the fact that the party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, avoided clearly endorsing the Meloni protocol last week.
The resolution, which has not received parliamentary support and which socialists, liberals and the left have spoken out against, also called for toughening migration policy, financing “physical barriers” at EU borders with European funds and increasing the staff of the European border agency (Frontex).
The vote in Strasbourg took place shortly before the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, visited Albania, a country that these days has been at the center of controversy for hosting the centers promoted by Meloni. The Commission does not rule out the idea of exploring the creation of expulsion camps for asylum seekers outside the community territory, an idea that it is considering within the framework of the reformulation it is preparing for the deportation rules. Von der Leyen has insisted in Tirana that Brussels is watching how the project develops.
With its support for the budget resolution this Wednesday in Strasbourg, the EPP once again breaks the cordon sanitaire intended to isolate far-right forces. The conservatives, led by Manfred Weber, had agreed on a text on the 2025 European budgets with the moderate groups. At the same time, he had also allied himself with far-right groups to introduce several amendments such as those regarding deportation camps and the withdrawal of aid to the UN refugee agency.
Previously, the MEP of the Popular Party Dolors Montserrat had attacked the Government of Pedro Sánchez and its immigration policy. “The real call effect is called Pedro Sánchez,” said the conservative in a debate on immigration in which she blamed the president of the Spanish Government for the increase in arrivals of irregular migrants through the Canary Islands route. “The inaction of the Sánchez Government not only puts the security of the European Union at risk, but also the thousands of migrants used by the mafias,” he said.
The Spanish president is one of the few European leaders who has opposed internment camps like those promoted in Albania. This Wednesday, Iratxe García, the president of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament, also harshly criticized this model. “Indiscriminate deportations are illegal and represent the most unworthy abdication of EU values,” he said during the debate. “It is unacceptable to kneel before the extreme right to bless an immigration model that violates human rights,” he insisted in the plenary session in Strasbourg.
Von der Leyen visits Albania
“We are following the development of this agreement very closely, but it is a bilateral pact, so I will not comment on it,” Von der Leyen said at a press conference with the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama. The German politician, who this Wednesday begins a route through the Balkan countries candidates to join the community club, has also given a boost to Albania on its European path, as one of the most advantaged students. And he has denied that the small country’s agreement with Italy by which Rome has installed two deportation camps there will help it enter the EU.
In a letter to the leaders of the Twenty-Seven sent last week as an appetizer to a summit that was very focused on the migration debate, Von der Leyen stressed that the Albanian model will serve to draw “practical lessons” when exploring the launch of these deportation camps at European level.
The idea adds assets in an increasingly right-wing European Union. It is part of one of those “innovative solutions” to combat irregular immigration that is talked about in Brussels as a euphemism for deportation camps and other hardline ideas. The blow of justice to the Meloni project – which has determined that the migrants, Egyptians and Bangladeshis, could not stay in Albania citing a recent European ruling that reduces the nationalities that could fit into this model – has not put an end to the idea they have in other European capitals to replicate it, but adapted to the needs of each country.
As the debate on irregular arrivals heats up, the European Commission is looking for formulas to advance some parts of the migration pact agreed a few months ago after having been frozen for years. This agreement must be operational in June 2026, as explained this Wednesday by the European Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, in a plenary debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Countries such as Spain, France and Germany had demanded that the application of this set of rules be accelerated, which toughens the conditions for accepting asylum seekers in community territory. It also establishes that all Member States must distribute solidarity quotas to those who arrive or pay 20,000 euros to a common basket for each rejected refugee. However, the pact is made up of dozens of rules and regulations and advancing only a part of the elements that work together is difficult and can overload, for example, the countries on the first line of arrivals, according to European sources.
Criticism of the pact with Tunisia
The EU’s commitment to the externalization of immigration responsibilities is increasingly broader. Brussels is now considering how to approach African countries such as Mali or Senegal after the increase in arrivals of people in an irregular situation along the so-called Canary Islands route. The model of pacts with countries of departure or transit of sending funds in exchange for border control is advancing. It is already the favorite option of all member states, despite criticism from international organizations.
The European ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, has criticized the European Commission in a report for not being transparent regarding the human rights information on which it relied before signing the agreement with Tunisia, a pact that includes EU funds for border management. The defender has also required the Community Executive to establish explicit criteria for suspending EU financing.
