From fast-track asylum to return hubs. The Italy-Albania deal on trial

“There have been delegations visiting the migrant centers in Albania, including groups from Germany and the Netherlands. Some expressed interest in the facilities, and a few even inquired about the possibility of renting parts of the camp,” said a source working inside the Italy-funded Albanian centers, which officially opened its doors in October last year.

Both diplomatic missions confirmed the visits. The Embassy of the Netherlands stated that its staff took part in “an official working visit earlier this year”, while the German Embassy, together with partners and incoming delegations, also visited the centers. When asked about the purpose of these visits, neither embassy disclosed details, citing that “no public information on individual visits can be provided”.

While other EU countries have shown interest in adapting the Italian offshoring model for their own asylum policies, the fate of the Italy-Albania project remains uncertain, especially after its legal foundations were called into question on August 1 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Under the Italy-Albania protocol signed in 2023, these offshore centers—administered under Italian jurisdiction—were initially supposed to extraterritorially process asylum requests and speed up returns, under a “fast-track” procedure. The deal applied only to adult male migrants from so-called “safe countries,” rescued in international waters by the Italian authorities.

As soon as it was launched last year, the deal faced legal setbacks after the Court of Rome challenged the asylum-processing mechanism, invalidating the detention of asylum seekers in Albania and their channeling to accelerated border procedures based on the concept of Safe Country of Origin (SCoO). Consequently, the Italian national courts did not legitimize the detention of asylum seekers disembarked to Albania between October 2024 and January 2025, ordering their immediate return to Italy. 

The Italian national courts did not legitimize the detention of asylum seekers disembarked to Albania between October 2024 and January 2025, ordering their immediate return to Italy

Drawing on an ECJ judgment, which prohibits designating states as SCoO if there are territorial exceptions, judicial authorities in Italy ruled by analogy that the fast-track border procedure had been unlawfully applied in the context of Italy-Albania deal. This ruling came due to the designation of countries like Egypt and Bangladesh on the SCoO list[1] despite categorical exceptions for groups at risk—such as minorities, LGBT+ individuals and women. The move was followed by a formal request filed by the Rome court to the ECJ to assess the compatibility of these procedures with EU law, thereby temporarily freezing the accelerated asylum procedures carried out in Albania. 

In an effort to avoid leaving the centers empty following the suspension of the first phase of the protocol, the Italian government revised the deal in March 2025 to repurpose the detention facilities in Albania into repatriation centers (CPRs). By issuing Decree-Law No. 37/2025, which was subsequently turned into law on 28th of March 2025, the Italian government authorized the transfer of individuals already present on Italian territory and subject to expulsion orders to Albania, rather than migrants rescued in international waters, as previously agreed upon in the pact. 

On August 1, the ECJ delivered its judgment on whether Member States can designate a country of origin as safe with certain-groups exceptions. It ruled that “a country can not be put in the list of safe countries of origin if that country does not offer adequate protection to its entire population”. The ruling further stipulated that Member States can designate countries as “safe” only on publicly available evidence, which can be subjected to judicial review, enabling applicants and courts to access and contest the justification for such listings.

As a result, the transfer of asylum-seekers from the sea is unlikely to resume in the context of the Italy-Albania deal, bringing a blow to the first phase of the deal. However, as Italian lawyer Andreina De Leo argues, things may change with the new Asylum Procedure Regulation, which is due to be rolled out in June 2026. The revised regulation explicitly allows territorial and group-based exceptions in SCoO designations and broadens the grounds permitted for accelerated procedures such as asylum-seekers from countries with recognition rate under 20 percent. Whether and how the ECJ ruling will shape the evolving Pact on Migration and Asylum remains to be seen in the coming year.

Centers turned into repatriation hubs – A laboratory of misery

While the first phase of the deal concerning fast-track asylum procedures seems “killed off” at the moment, the second phase remains still active. With the conversion of the centers into repatriation hubs, migrants transferred directly from Italy to the Gjadër CPR may now be detained for up to 18 months while awaiting deportation to their countries of origin. Since April 11, six groups of migrants—around 140 migrants—have been transferred directly from pre-removal detention centers in Italy to Albania, with only 27 migrants left in the centers as of early August 2025, according to independent monitoring teams.

“Migrants we spoke with told us they remained handcuffed throughout the entire journey—from departure in Italy to arrival in Albania. Their hands weren’t even freed to eat or use the bathroom,” said Rachele Scarpa, an Italian parliamentarian who has been actively monitoring the transfers of migrants directly from centers in Italy to Albania.

Upon their disembarkation at the Albanian port, migrants are escorted to the Gjadër CPR. Since migrants cross into Albanian territory, Albanian police has confirmed that they collect migrants’ fingerprints and personal data into their internal system, known as TIMS[2] (Total Information Management System). In recent years, the system has faced repeated cyber-attacks and has been linked to data breaches involving organized crime networks. A criminal investigation launched in late 2023 by the Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) in Albania uncovered evidence that senior police officials and prosecutors had shared sensitive information from TIMS with organized crime groups via encrypted messaging applications. The storage of migrants’ biometric data in such a compromised infrastructure raises serious concerns and risks for data protection and misuse.

As noted by the Border Violence Monitoring Network, the biometric data collected at TIMS is still not fully made interoperable with EU systems. Nevertheless, cooperation agreements with Schengen states, the presence of Frontex, and the pressures of EU accession negotiations are pushing Albania’s domestic biometric database to ‘plug in’ with the EU’s infrastructure. In the long term, this interoperability raises significant risks: under the Safe Third Country (STC) provision of the New Pact, if people on the move manage to enter an EU member state and lodge an asylum claim, their fingerprints could reveal prior transit through Albania (designated as STC), making them liable for return to the Balkan state. “Linking these databases to the EU’s machinery doesn’t make them safer, it simply extends Europe’s border control by proxy, with all the risks pushed onto people crossing borders. In practice, this means a fingerprint taken in Albania could one day be used to deny someone asylum in the EU” explains Hope Barker, EU migration policy expert. 

A fingerprint taken in Albania could one day be used to deny someone asylum in the EU

Once transferred to the Gjadër CPR under coercive means and with no transparent ground, migrants disappear behind the walls that radically isolate them from the outside world. Inspection visits conducted by independent human rights watchdogs—often joined by Italian parliamentarians accompanied by legal and health experts—have revealed an alarming picture of the health conditions of migrants detained in the Gjadër CPR. “There were several suicide attempts recorded in the registry of critical events—people who tried to sew their mouths, lips, wrists; one person even drank shampoo,” reported Dutch MEP Anna Strolenberg after her inspection visit to the Gjadër CPR in late May this year.

Parliamentarians or Ombudsman delegates are the only members from the inspection teams permitted to consult the “registry of critical events”, an official logbook in which Italian authorities are obliged to register incidents that disrupt the normal functioning of the centers. During her visit on June 17th, Italian deputy Scarpa counted 65 incidents—averaging one incident per day—in the internal official record, including widespread acts of self-harm, suicide attempts and medical emergencies. 

“There was a Georgian man transferred to the Gjadër CPR from Italy who showed clear signs of vulnerability from the start. He repeatedly attempted suicide, and eight critical events recorded in the first two days concerned him,” explained Scarpa. The man, now returned to Italy, had undergone a vulnerability assessment[3] back in November 2024.

The parliamentary inspection teams have criticized the delayed and inadequate vulnerability screenings for migrants transferred to Albania, raising concerns that many had been assessed in November or December of the previous year—before being deported in April 2025. This means that four to five months passed without any re-evaluation, exposing institutional failures in medical and psychological screening processes.

The register of critical events itself indicates a troubling frequency of emergencies, as well as episodes of severe psychological crisis among the detained migrants. However, legal experts who have inspected the centers point to inconsistencies and gaps in the documentation of these critical incidents, raising concerns about possible cover-ups of mistreatment within the facilities. “In the register, there was an entry about a man who had been beaten and was subsequently transferred to Lezha hospital. But there is no indication of who was responsible—whether it was the administration, the police, or another detainee,” said Martina Stefanile, an immigration lawyer and researcher at the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI). 

Numerous interviews carried out with migrants revealed alarming levels of acute psychological distress: migrants with clear signs of disorientation, slowed speech and disorganized thinking. “We spoke with some of the migrants who told us that they no longer recalled what day it was or how long they have been locked up there” explained MEP Strolenberg. “We talked with a Moroccan migrant in the afternoon. He appeared drowsy—it was evident he was under the influence of heavy medication. He showed us the various pills he had taken to calm his nerves.” Several migrants interviewed reported an increased use of psychotropic drugs, particularly after being transferred to the Gjadër CPR.

As noted by ASGI, detention in offshore centers, simply by being carried out extraterritorially, involves poorer material conditions than those found in centers located in Italy, in particular to the right to health. In principle, migrants are entitled to timely and adequate access to essential medical care. The right to health for detained migrants is laid out in the Italy-Albania Protocol, which states: “within the facilities referred to in paragraph 1, the Italian Party shall establish health structures to ensure the necessary health services. [...] Should health needs arise that the Italian authorities cannot meet within those facilities, the Albanian authorities shall cooperate with the Italian authorities responsible for those facilities to ensure the provision of essential and urgent medical care to detained migrants.” 

Migrants receive a level of treatment that falls significantly below the standards guaranteed by the Italian system, and ultimately below the minimum thresholds required by the current EU Return Directive

Under these provisions, it is clear that migrants detained in Albania are excluded from access to the Italian Healthcare System and, in cases of urgent medical assistance, are referred instead to the Albanian healthcare system. Yet the Albanian national system is unable to fill these gaps, as it continues to suffer from serious structural shortcomings and systemic dysfunctions. As a result, migrants receive a level of treatment that falls significantly below the standards guaranteed by the Italian system, and ultimately below the minimum thresholds required by the current EU Return Directive.

In addition, the centers are located near the remote rural village of Gjadër, which lacks hospitals or nearby healthcare facilities. In the event migrants would need urgent specialized treatment, the access to medical services would not be effectively upheld, raising serious concerns regarding the effective protection of the migrants’ right to health.

In parallel to Italy re-purposing the centers into repatriation facilities, the European Commission proposed in March 2025 a new Return Regulation, including the creation of “return hubs” in third countries to which individuals with an expulsion order could be transferred. Despite the diverging operational modalities that the two models use, they share a common strategy: the outsourcing of detention centers in legal gray zones. In the months after the proposal was introduced, the Italy-Albania model was repeatedly brought up as an example of these hubs. At a July meeting of EU interior ministers in Copenhagen, a senior Greek official pointed to the Italian-run centers in Albania “as possible hosts for return hubs”. With negotiations on the current Return Directive now underway in Brussels, is the Italian model laying the groundwork for the forthcoming Return Regulation? 

Extraterritorial detention and the return directive

The extraterritorial detention and repatriation procedures implemented under the Italy-Albania agreement have raised red flags regarding their compliance with EU law, particularly Directive 2008/115/EC (the Return Directive)[4]. On 9 May 2025, five Egyptian nationals detained at the Gjadër CPR were deported directly from Albanian territory after getting transferred to Tirana International Airport, where a charter flight from Rome to Cairo made a stop to pick them up. According to reporting by Altreconomia, this marked the first known deportation operation conducted by Italy from Albanian soil. 

Procurement records show that the Italian Interior Ministry published a tender for a charter flight to Egypt on April 28, even though at the time, no Egyptian nationals were transferred and detained in the Gjadër CPR in Albania. According to figures obtained by Altreconomia, the group of Egyptians were transferred only in May to Albania—suggesting that the transfer was carried solely to facilitate deportation. The stopover alone, carried out without public disclosure, reportedly costed €31,779—approximately €6,300 per individual among the Egyptian migrants detained in Gjadër CPR.

Under the current Directive, migrants subject to return decisions issued by Italian authorities should be returned from Italian territory, not from a third country. The five migrants were escorted along a route monitored by Albanian police, outside the jurisdiction of Italian authorities. In line with the Italy-Albania Protocol, the route did not fall under Italian jurisdiction, meaning any potential incidents along it would be governed solely by Albanian law. This operational modality removes Italy’s ability to ensure the deportation complies with EU legal standards, especially those concerning safeguards against collective expulsion and refoulement under the Return Directive.

In response to these legal concerns, sources from the Italian Ministry of the Interior have quoted a series of bilateral implementing agreements signed after the original Protocol as the legal basis for such operations. These agreements purportedly regulate the procedures for return, including the possibility of carrying out deportations directly from Albania following formal notification from Italian to Albanian authorities. However, the Tirana International Airport remains outside Italian jurisdiction, underscoring the paradoxical fiction of treating non-EU territory as equivalent to that of an EU Member State. Under such conditions, it becomes impossible to conduct an up-to-date, individualized risk assessment of refoulement either during the transfer process or in the destination country of the deported migrants.

Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests submitted to the Albanian Border Police and the Albanian Ministry of Interior regarding the number of migrants repatriated from the Gjadër CPR via the Tirana International Airport have not been answered at the time of this publication. “You can contact the Italian side to obtain information,” a representative of the Albanian State Police responded by email.

These deportation flights may constitute a violation of Article 9(1) of the Return Directive, which requires that return operations be suspended if there is a risk of refoulement or other serious human rights violations. The lack of jurisdictional control and effective oversight raises serious concerns about transparency, legal accountability, and the protection of fundamental rights in the context of externalized EU border enforcement.

In parallel, the Albanian government has submitted readmission agreement requests to Egypt in addition to the following twelve countries: Azerbaijan, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, Bangladesh, Tunisia, India, Pakistan, Morocco, Iraq, and Afghanistan. According to email correspondence with Albania’s Ministry of the Interior, no negotiations have yet taken place. “Readmission agreements remain a priority for the Ministry of the Interior,” noted a source within the Ministry in response to our FOIA requests. “Our representatives have raised the issue in various high-level meetings with the European Commission, requesting the use of diplomatic channels to initiate negotiations. We are still awaiting a response”.

This push for bilateral readmission agreements between Albania—as a potential host of return hubs—and other third countries aligns with the European Commission’s broader proposal to establish “return hubs” outside of EU territory. The proposal envisions the opening of return centers in third countries where individuals with final return decisions could be deported by EU Member States. Once the individual is transferred to the hubs, the Member State’s legal obligations would, in principle, cease. Under this proposal, the third country hosting the return hubs would either facilitate the onward deportation of migrants to the country of origin or permit them to remain. 

In such extraterritorial settings, it becomes structurally impossible to guarantee or independently monitor the effective implementation of the safeguards mandated by EU law

Although the transfer of migrants from a CPR in Italy to one located in Albania is formally treated as a routine internal relocation—rather than as a return operation—this legal fiction obscures the distinction between a facility located within an EU Member State and one set up in a third country, where Italian authorities do not exercise full or direct sovereignty. In such extraterritorial settings, it becomes structurally impossible to guarantee or independently monitor the effective implementation of the safeguards mandated by EU law, including those concerning detention conditions, judicial oversight, and access to legal remedies.

On 20 June 2025, the Italian courts submitted a further preliminary reference to the ECJ, raising concerns about the compatibility of the Italy-Albania deal with the Return Directive (Directive 2008/115/EC) in addition to the early legal challenges related to the Asylum Procedures Directive (Directive 2013/32/EU). As acknowledged by the Italian Court of Cassation, the legal treatment of areas in Albania—where return procedures are carried out—as functionally equivalent to Italian territory does not imply that these zones can be considered an integral part of the Italian State. This distinction underscores the jurisdictional limitations embedded in conducting operations on third-country territory, with implications for the implementation of EU and Italian legal safeguards. The outcome of these legal proceedings is still to be assessed. 

While border externalization has long been a key mechanism through which the EU seeks to manage migration beyond its territorial jurisdiction, it has gradually expanded into a strategy through intensified cooperation with so-called third countries. This is evident in the new migration agreements concluded with non-EU neighbors across the Western Balkans.

Such practices have given rise to a distinct form of migration diplomacy. As Piro Rexhepi argues[5], Western Balkan states situated along the EU’s frontier have leveraged their role as gatekeepers—screening and excluding “undesirable” migrants on behalf of Europe—in exchange for economic resources and acceleration of EU accession talks. In reference to the controversial deal signed with Albania, the Italian Prime Minister Meloni has publicly offered political backing for Albania’s EU accession in exchange for its Adriatic neighbor’s cooperation on migration.

Nine months after the ‘Albania model’ kicked off, the balance that emerges out of it is worrying with the centers turned into legal gray zones and the migrants locked up in extraterritorial penal colonies. In light of these documented violations and systemic abuses, stopping this offshore model in all its forms has become an urgent political and legal imperative.