What awaits for Italy-Albania migrant deal?

The protocol struck between the two countries[1], while not an international agreement[2] formally constitutes a bilateral deal and ad-hoc policy arrangement. This means it is exempt from the usual checks and balances of international agreements, raising concerns about oversight and accountability. The deal was negotiated in secrecy through informal and administrative procedures, with the Government of the Italian Republic and the Council of Ministers of the Albanian Republic[3] reaching this agreement behind closed doors. Parliaments of both countries have voted the deal in order to make it effective.

As part of this bilateral agreement, Albania has granted[4] areas of its territory to Italy to establish migrant centers managed under Italian jurisdiction. Some of these centers are located inside the coastal port of Shëngjin, northwest of Albania, and the rest of the centers are in the former military zone of Gjadër, a village approximately twenty kilometers further north of Shëngjin. The hotspot, hermetically enclosed by a five-meter wall, has been built within the Shëngjin port. This is where the migrants are escorted after disembarkation and undergo identification procedures and medical screening. It is also where authorities register asylum applications and identify potentially vulnerable applicants who cannot be transferred to Gjadër to be subjected to the border procedure and should thus be returned to Italy.

The remaining applicants deemed “fit for detention” are transferred to the other centers in Gjadër camps. The centers are divided into three sections[5]: one, with 880 places, for asylum seekers whose claims are resolved within 28 days; the second, with 144 places, for detained migrants whose claims are rejected pending repatriation; and a third, with 20 places, for migrants undergoing criminal proceedings. The centers in Gjadër were built in a former military area and are surrounded by a seven-meter wall. All centers, designated as Italy’s border areas, are managed by Italian authorities. They are responsible for transferring migrants to and from the centers, while the role of Albanian security guards is to oversee ‘security and public order’ at their external perimeter.

The protocol applies only to men ‘who are considered not vulnerable’ coming from the list of “safe countries”[6] who, if subjected to selected disembarkation to Albania, will be transferred to Shëngjin port, located in de-facto Albanian territory, instead of the nearest Italian ports. As argued by legal scholars, this directive is fraught with legal ambiguities as it challenges the Italian government’s compliance with its Search and Rescue (SAR) obligations[7] under international maritime law and human rights legal standards.

The Italian state exercises jurisdiction and effective control extraterritorially[8] based on international law. In practice, this means that if Italian authorities contact people in distress at sea, they subsequently establish a ‘special relationship of dependency’; therefore, they exercise effective control[9] over them during SAR operations in international waters. The centers in Albania, originally slated to open in the spring of 2024, were made operational[10] only on October 11th, as announced by the former Italian Ambassador to Albania, Fabrizio Bucci. Since the detention centers in Albania opened and until January 2025, three operations have been carried out under the protocol. The Italian military ships brought to Albania in the first operation eight migrants intercepted before reaching Lampedusa, followed by sixteen migrants in the second disembarkation and forty-nine migrants in the third operation.

The migrants deported to Albania are of four nationalities: Bangladesh, Egypt, Ivory Coast, and Gambia. In the last transfer of migrants to Albania in January, four minors were identified, and one applicant was deemed vulnerable after screening procedures were carried out in the hotspot in Shëngjin. The identified minors and vulnerable migrants were immediately returned to Italy. Despite the Italian government’s repeated attempts, the third operation to transfer migrants and process asylum requests in Albania was once again blocked[11] by the Court of Appeal in Rome, leading to a deadlock in the deal. 

Concerns about the conditions and safeguards inside the centers

Even though only a few operations have been carried out under this protocol, the recorded irregularities and violations of international and national laws have been numerous. "What struck me the most was the fact they were still building some parts in the medical center in Gjadër camps. And there was also rain dripping from the ceiling. So a bucket was standing there because it was already leaking" said Dutch politician Anna Stolenberg. Stolenberg was one of the four MEPs from the VOLT Europa group, which carried out an inspection visit[12] to the emptied centers in late November 2024 after the first two failed operations. Stolenberg’s remarks on the ongoing construction inside Gjadër camps imply that migrants transferred to Albania in the first two operations were sent to the centers while the medical center was still under construction, sparking concerns about the conditions and safeguards inside the centers. 

Another independent monitoring team made up of mediators, lawyers accompanying lawmakers from the Italian Parliamentary Contact Group on Immigration and with the representatives of the migrant rights network "Tavolo Asilo e Immigrazione"[13] has inspected the centers to monitor reception conditions and procedures during all three operations carried out under this deal.

The inspection team criticized the absence of IOM, the International Organization for Migration, on board of the naval ship. The Government designated the IOM as the entity responsible for carrying out the screening procedures and vulnerability assessment. "The military doctors did the screening of migrants on the naval ship. This is a grave problem as military doctors do not hold the competence to carry out medical screening of migrants," said Italian MP Rachele Scarpa after the third group of migrants was transferred to Albania last month. 

The independent monitoring team faced various challenges during their visit to Gjadër camps the following days. Some members claimed that when they requested to meet with migrants, the Italian staff workers were hesitant to let them, citing "security issues." "When we asked to talk to the migrants directly, they said at first that migrants were sleeping, then later they argued that due to ‘security reasons’, we should be cautious in meeting them," said one of the inspection team members.

In addition, the monitoring team criticized the weak provision of legal protection for transferred persons, which was not ensured in previous arrivals in Albania, citing that they have asked the government for clarifications on how migrants can speak with a lawyer of their choice, both in the preparation phase and in the hearing with the Commission, and the eventual validation of detention. In addition, the screening of migrants inside the hotspot took place during a power outage inside the Shëngjin port after the third arrival of migrants to the Albanian port.

Italian judicial authorities temporarily suspending the protocol

The Italy-Albania deal de-territorializes the EU asylum border procedure by assessing asylum applications through an accelerated border procedure in designated border areas (in this case, the centers located in Albania) and preventing physical access to Italian territory. 

"In practice, to do a border procedure in an accelerated manner means that the asylum seekers are required to stay in the proximity of the borders, and the procedure is faster than usual, but it’s not necessary that asylum seekers are deprived of the freedom of liberty altogether," says Andreina De Leo, an Italian legal scholar. For this reason, for all individuals brought to centers in Albania, the Italian judges need to validate both the applicability of the border procedure and the necessity of proportionality of the detention, explains De Leo.

The protocol processes asylum claims by implementing an accelerated border procedure lasting up to 28 days based on the Safe Country of Origin (SCoO)[14] concept. On October 4 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that member states cannot designate third countries as an SCoO with territorial limitation by determining that a third country can only be classified as a SCoO if it is generally safe and free from persecution, torture, or inhumane treatment, throughout its entire territory.

Italy's list of SCoO before the first transfer was not made public. Through a Freedom of Information Act, the Italian Association for Judicial Studies on Immigration (ASGI) lodged a request to understand and check how this list was developed and prepared. When the list was made public, it showed that it lacked country reports for the list of countries designated as safe. The list entailed some countries, including Bangladesh and Egypt, which are considered safe with territorial limitations and exceptions for specific at-risk groups, such as the LGBTIQ+ community, victims of female genital mutilation, and human rights defenders.

It was understood that certain countries were listed as safe, both with geographical limitations—basically, it designates Nigeria as safe, but in the north, where there is Boko Haram, that part is not safe—and with exceptions for some groups. In November 2024, the second transfer of migrants under this deal was blocked for a second time by rulings from an Italian Court in Rome.[15] Judges argued that the asylum procedures could only legally apply to migrants coming from "safe countries," arguing that none of the primary countries of origin of migrants reaching the Mediterranean can be defined as such.

The Court of Rome found that this designation as SCoO by the Italian government was incompatible with the ECJ’s ruling, ordering the authorities to apply the ordinary procedures leading to the migrants’ return to Italy. "The problem in Albania is that the judges did not even need to go into the detention question because the problem was with the border procedure. And it’s important to understand that the problem with the border procedure does not have anything to do with Albania. So the judges would have said the same even if the border procedure was to be applied in Lampedusa," explains Andreina De Leo. 

Because of this ruling by the Rome court, the first two operations to Albania in October and November were blocked, and the case was referred to the ECJ for judgment. In the meantime, the Italian government revoked the competence of the first instant tribunals by transferring power from specialized courts to the Court of Appeal. In spite of the changes in legal competencies, the Court of Appeal, following the previous court, referred the case of the third operation to ECJ to assess the schemes’ compatibility with EU law and blocked the implementation of the protocol hinged on the accelerated asylum procedures. 

The extraterritorial management of asylum can not work – for now 

The Italy-Albania’s model bears striking similarities to the controversial Australian asylum policy of "Pacific Solutions” introduced in 2001, which involved turning back boats with migrants from Australian waters and sending migrants to offshore detention centers on the Nauru and Manus islands for asylum-processing. The sadistic model proved destructive for many asylum applicants deported from Australia to the notorious centers, resulting in numerous suicides and self-harm attempts[16] by refugees.

The mastermind behind the Australian model is Alexander Downer, the former foreign minister of Australia. Downer, who has been advocating for European leaders to copy and duplicate Australia’s tough stance on migrants, is the current Chairman of Trustees at Policy Exchange in Britain, a powerful right-wing think tank shaping policies in the UK. This is the same think tank that honored Meloni with the Grotius Prize during her first visit to Britain as Prime Minister of Italy in April 2023. Two months later, Meloni was hosted by Downer in a public event in London, where[17] Downer praised the Italian prime minister as one of the most promising European leader, hinting at the Meloni’s potential in shaping policies across the European continent. 

The "innovative" Albania-Italy migrant deal is an export of the Australian model, which Meloni and other European leaders should not be proud of replicating, nor should they turn it into the EU’s blueprint for migration policy. The protocol is currently suspended due to the pending decision by the ECJ which has to decide on the applicability of accelerated border procedures executed by Italian government. However, the game rules may change in 2026 when the new EU Pact on Asylum and Migration gains legal power. 

The new pact[18] is expected to overhaul the whole asylum system across the union, where border procedures will be allowed not only for people coming from safe countries of origin but also for everyone who comes from a country of origin whose recognition rate at the EU level is less than 20%. "Also, for those coming from safe countries of origin, now it’s in the new Asylum Procedures Regulation that it is possible to designate safe countries as safe if there are exceptions based on both territory and groups. So this means that even if the protocol implementation is halted at the moment, starting from 2026, the Italian government can attempt to bring more people to Albania and move forward with the agreement," says scholar De Leo. 

While the ECJ still needs to rule on the scheme’s compatibility with EU law, the future of the Italy-Albania deal remains to be seen. In the upcoming months, we will learn how much longer this deal, with a cost reaching 1 billion euro, will remain deadlocked.