The European Union confirmed that the bloc will remain on the side monitoring but not interfering over the migrant deal between Italy and Albania that will offset asylum-seekers to the Balkan nation.
The prime ministers of the two countries, Giorgia Meloni and Edi Rama, inked a deal in Rome on November 2023 to send up to 3,000 migrants per month for asylum processing in Albanian centres. The deal targets migrants rescued by the Italian coast guard in international waters. The refugees will have their asylum procedure while in custody and in case of a positive response they will be allowed in Italy, otherwise Albania will deport them.
Albania set up the first detention centre and last week sheltered the first 12 migrants but only for three days. They were brought back to Italy after a ruling from judges in Rome deemed the countries of origin to not be safe for repatriation.
Meloni and her government promptly wrote a decree that halved the number of countries not considered safe, thus allowing for fast-track repatriation of migrants from a higher number of countries than before. The decree went immediately into effect, helping the migrants deal with Albania to start in full force.
Despite the criticism from human rights groups and NGOs over the deal, the European Union decided months ago to keep a monitoring stance and avoided confrontations about it. When visiting Albania at the beginning of the week, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen remarked that the deal was a “bilateral agreement” between the two countries and reiterated that the EU will only monitor it. Back in December in a letter to EU leaders, von der Leyen spoke about the deal as one of several “important initiatives” on migration.