Giorgia Meloni does not plan to give up her deportation plan to Albania, after the judicial setback that frustrated her first attempt this week and caused the last 12 migrants who were still there, of the 16 who arrived on Wednesday, to disembark in Italy on Saturday. The 70,000 square meter Gjader internment camp, with 800 million expected over five years, remains empty. And the 16 asylum seekers deported this week to Albania are already back in Italy.
The 16 Egyptians and Bangladeshis must have already understood that Italy is a complicated country. After the departure of the first four on Wednesday, the same day of their arrival – two for being minors and another two for being in vulnerable conditions – the last 12 remaining in the Gjader internment camp set sail this Saturday at the edge of the nine in the morning from the port of Shengjin on an Italian coast guard ship that arrived six hours later at the port of Bari, in southern Italy.
Now the far-right prime minister is going to clash with the Italian judiciary, which has been harshly attacked by several ministers and the three parties of the Executive. The words of the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, have been especially harsh, for which the opposition called for his resignation. He defined the sentence as “abnormal” and warned: “If the judiciary exceeds its own powers, attributing prerogatives that it cannot have, such as defining what a secure State is, politics must intervene, which expresses the popular will. We will take legislative measures.”
That is the key to what is happening: which countries can be considered safe. And it is not well understood what legal mechanisms the Italian Government can activate, because despite all the criticism of the judiciary, the truth is that the Rome court that ordered the transfer to Italy of the deported migrants limited itself to applying a recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU. Its resolutions are binding. That decision cut the list of safe countries from 22 to 7, to whose citizens the controversial rapid asylum and expulsion management protocol that Italy is using in Albania can be applied.
Thus, practically all the main States of origin of those who arrive in Italy through the Mediterranean have fallen from the list of safe countries. The sentence leaves him mortally wounded Albania model of Meloni, praised by the EU and watched closely by several countries, whose legal basis now fails. In theory, with the European ruling in hand, Italy could only deport to the Balkan country people rescued at sea from seven countries, all with low arrival rates: Cape Verde, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself.
Another decree law
But Meloni does not give up, the level of confrontation with the judiciary will increase and it is not ruled out that a military ship will carry out a new transfer of migrants to Albania next week. Tomorrow, Monday, he has convened a Council of Ministers to approve new rules that will allow legal obstacles to be overcome. According to the Italian press, he plans to reinforce the Executive’s position with a decree law, of higher rank than the one in force until now, which again insists on establishing which are the safe countries according to Italy’s criteria to whose citizens a quick protocol can be applied. asylum and expulsion management.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the Democratic Party (PD), the leading force in the opposition, was also very harsh with the Government: “The agreement with Albania is not standing, as we had pointed out, and do not believe that they will be able to circumvent it, because “To circumvent the rulings of the European Court of Justice, they should leave the EU.” Schlein defined the institutional clash with the judiciary as “very serious”: “It is not the judges’ fault if the Government does not know how to read the laws and sentences. “No one is above European, international and Italian laws, much less whoever governs.”
Meloni had launched his plan despite the foreseeable difficulties he was going to encounter, after the Government had twisted the laws to the limit to make it possible. The system has failed where it was expected to fail. Mainly, in three points. First, as a result of the European ruling, which is dated October 4. Second, due to the small number of migrants to whom the protocol can ultimately be applied, given numerous other legal limitations: healthy adult men in non-vulnerable conditions rescued in international waters only by Italian ships, those of foreign NGOs are left out. and those people who reach land by their own means, which are 40% of the total. It has been reflected in the absurd cost of mobilizing a warship to carry only 16 people. And third, a prior selection of deportees carried out in hasty and precarious conditions, which could lead to errors. Everything has come true.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency, has given details of how the people to be deported to Albania were selected, because its staff participated in the procedures. I was on board the military ship Poundwhich then moved the first group to Albania. The IOM has revealed that the initial group was 85 people, but the first examination ruled out the vast majority, and only 16 remained. “90% of those who come from Libya are vulnerable,” explained a spokesperson, meaning that They have suffered torture or violence and are in a serious physical or psychological state.
Even so, that first selection carried out without much time, on the high seas and in unsuitable conditions, was not exhaustive. In fact, later in Albania, once on land, a more detailed examination found two minors and two adults in serious vulnerable conditions that had not been detected. Furthermore, as revealed by the deputies who visited the migrants in Gjader, in many cases the main reason for being selected for deportation was simply lacking documentation. Because it is one of the requirements that reinforces entry into the fast protocol.
On the other hand, there is another controversial aspect still to be clarified. Some of the deportees claim that at the time of being rescued they already saw the island of Lampedusa, according to the parliamentary delegation that spoke with them. That is, they could have been helped in Italian waters, something contrary to the fast protocol regulations. Finally, the 16 who were sent to Albania came from Bangladesh and Egypt, two countries that according to the European ruling should be considered unsafe, and even so they were deported, with a high risk that the Rome Court would later reject their request. retain them within the fast procedure, as has ended up happening.
However, even though the outlook was bleak, Meloni continued forward. Perhaps due to the rush to release the model, which was five months late, in view of the European Council that has addressed immigration. Perhaps because he tested it, mainly with the judiciary, whom he now accuses of acting ideologically and blames the plan for not working.