An Italian vessel returns to Albania with eight migrants on board

Rome is trying to rescue a contentious proposal to process asylum seekers overseas after a first attempt ran into legal issues. On Wednesday, an Italian naval ship sailed for Albania with a second small batch of migrants.

By sending boat migrants to guarded camps in Albania instead of allowing them to enter Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government seeks to discourage others from attempting the perilous sea voyage to Europe.

Last month, Italy deported a first group of 16 migrants to Albania, but they were all returned within a few days, most of them after a Rome judge decided they couldn’t be detained in the Balkan nation because of legal issues.

Only eight migrants were sent to Albania on Wednesday after being rescued close to the island of Lampedusa, indicating that the government was taking it slow and trying to see whether it could break the stalemate from October.

Italy had designated 22 nations as safe, meaning the government thought they could be quickly deported, and the first wave of migrants came from Egypt and Bangladesh.

The Rome judges, however, questioned this, citing a previous European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision that stated a non-EU nation cannot be regarded safe until its whole territory is deemed safe from threat.

Consequently, everyone in Albania was transported to Italy and placed in open receiving areas.

Enraged by the ruling, Meloni’s cabinet changed the list of safe countries’ legal standing from a weaker ministerial decree to an act of law, arguing that this would make it more difficult for judges to contest its legitimacy.

The origin of the new set of asylum-seekers was not disclosed by the military. Given that Tunisia was thought to be more stable than many other countries, Italian publications had conjectured over the weekend that the government may target its citizens.

As the first European Union country to send migrants to a non-EU country, Italy has constructed two reception centers in Albania. Italian staff work in the facilities in Shengjin and Gjader.

The agreement with Tirana stipulates that no more than 3,000 migrants may be present in Albania at any given time.

Italy has set a cap of 36,000 men annually and stated that only “non-vulnerable” individuals from safe nations would be transferred there.