The judicial setbacks to the Italian deportation camp model in Albania, the failed recipe to stop immigration by the far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have not deterred the European Commission from moving towards that path, as more and more countries demand in a Right-wing and increasingly armored European Union. The Community Executive is already studying the financial cost of creating these points outside the EU to send asylum seekers. “We have deepened our analysis of innovative ways to fight illegal migration, following the priorities indicated by the Member States,” explains the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a letter sent about the lines of action of the Executive to the European leaders. “We are studying the best way to introduce the possibility of establishing these centers into the legal framework,” the German conservative informs them.
Von der Leyen’s idea is to introduce the controversial formula – which has not only suffered blows from several Italian courts and is currently stopped in that country, but also harsh criticism from human rights organizations – into the reformed returns directive in the that the Community Executive is already working to accelerate expulsions. The German conservative wants this to be the first major regulatory project of the legislature that has just launched.
“We have to examine the legal, operational and practical aspects, as well as the financial implications of such centers, while respecting fundamental rights and the principle of non-refoulement,” says Von der Leyen in the letter sent to the heads of state and of Government on Monday afternoon and which will serve as one of the bases of debate for the summit on Thursday in Brussels, in which some Member States want to talk about those “innovative solutions” that they use as a euphemism to refer to deportation centers extra-community.
85,600 euros per migrant
The study of the financial implications of installing these points outside the EU can be a wash of cold water, if we really pay attention to that factor, to the aspirations of the hard-line countries and the pragmatic ones, if they are taken into account. the Italian figures. The approximate cost Albania modelwhich many observe as a way to imitate, is a millionaire. The cost per migrant—Rome managed to deport very few there and all had to be transferred to Italy by court order—has been around 85,600 euros, compared to the 35 euros per day it costs to maintain them in reception centers on Italian soil.
Although the main obstacle to Albania modelin which the ultra Meloni has cast itself, has been a European ruling that, in practice, rendered the entire process useless by reducing the number of countries to whose citizens the controversial rapid border rejection asylum management protocol could be applied.
Denmark, Sweden, Greece and Austria have shown interest in adapting the Albanian protocol of sending asylum seekers from countries with low general acceptance rates to centers outside the EU until their applications are processed. Spain is the country that has most categorically rejected the idea, due to ethical and human rights concerns. Others, like Germany, are not closed to the formula, but believe that it is too expensive and unviable from a financial point of view.
For his part, Meloni urged the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Tuesday to dismiss objections to his Government’s flagship plan to send maritime migrants to Albania. During a speech in Parliament ahead of a summit of EU leaders, Meloni said that if the European court were to uphold these objections “it would run the risk of compromising the repatriation policies of all member states,” Reuters reports.
