2024-10-21 17:51:00
Giorgia Meloni is apparently at a dead end in her efforts to push forward with her plan to deport migrants to Albania due to legal obstacles posed by the courts. However, the Italian prime minister is determined to move forward. Among other things because she feels supported by Brussels and many EU countries who view her initiative favorably: last week’s meeting in the Belgian capital was attended by representatives of 11 member states and the president herself, Ursula von der Leyen.
Even though the first trial failed, with 16 migrants deported last week still arriving in Italy, Meloni believes the door to deportations has already been opened. Now it is simply a matter of persevering and perfecting the mechanism with the necessary legal reforms. And that’s all: in the Council of Ministers meeting this Monday afternoon, it approved a law decree which reaffirms its criteria for rapid expulsion protocols and with which it hopes to be able to force the judges to validate the next transfer to Albania. Among other things, it reduced from 22 to 19 the countries that Italy considers safe and whose citizens, therefore, can apply the rapid protocol with expulsion and subsequent repatriation. Cameroon, Colombia and Nigeria left the list. But all the others remain, including those with the highest number of arrivals in Italy.
According to Italian media, another ship with a new group will set sail next week, as soon as new rescues occur and weather conditions allow. According to jurists, however, the decree law will not change anything, since the courts have limited themselves to applying a recent ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU, which is binding, and a second transfer risks failing again. This resolution indicated that if in a country there is an area where human rights are not respected, or there is a group that suffers discrimination, the entire country should be considered unsafe. This was the case of Bangladesh and Egypt, the nationalities of the 12 migrants interned in Albania, and for this reason the Court of Rome ordered their transfer to Italy. And it was the case, in total, of 15 of the 22 countries considered safe by Italy, which is why this European ruling shook the entire system of deportations to Albania.
However, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio, who had defined the ruling of the Court of Rome as “anomalous”, claimed this Monday after the Council of Ministers that the European resolution “has not been well understood”. If the opposition had already called for his resignation and the magistrate had criticized his words, his new statements do not seem destined to calm things down. He assured that the judges perhaps did not understand the European ruling well, because “it is very complicated and it is written in French”.
According to the minister, “the crux of the sentence is that the judge, when he pronounces himself, must say in an exhaustive and complete way what are the reasons why, for an individual, a particular country is not safe.” In this sense, he underlined that the Italian ruling is incomplete and not argued. The Government’s line, that is, is that it is necessary to analyze case by case and it would not be enough to simply come from a country considered unsafe.
Nordio also stressed that the deported migrants had no documents, so their nationality is “uncertain” and a judge cannot decide with guarantees on their country of origin. This is a key point in the Albania model. Just as reported by the parliamentary delegation that visited the migrants in the Gjadër internment camp, one of the main selection criteria for the deportees, after their rescue at sea, was the fact that they did not have a passport. Because this increased the chances of deportation and facilitated their inclusion in the rapid protocol, despite the migrants claiming that their passports had been stolen in Libya.
With this law decree, a rule of higher rank than the one currently in force, which was a decree of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in coordination with the Ministry of Justice and the Interior, Meloni hopes to protect the Government’s criteria and that judges must accept its guidelines. Nordio assured that judges cannot apply an administrative act, “a secondary rule, but not a primary law”. “If the list of safe countries is written into a law, the judge cannot fail to apply it,” he argued. We will then have to see what will happen with the next deportation. If it is a question of interpretations, differences of point of view could continue to exist and, in the end, the clash between Meloni and the judges could intensify.
The first Italian minister, Giorgia Meloni, this month in Rome.Roberto Monaldo (DPA via Europa Press)
Amid criticism from the opposition for a deportation plan which it considers already failed and illegal, the Five Star Movement has denounced the Government before the Court of Auditors, for the huge investments necessary for the construction of a reception camp and another for the internment of migrants. Albania (800 million in five years and a first transfer costing around 18 thousand euros for each of the 16 migrants). Even the Pope and the Italian Church have clearly positioned themselves against it Albania model. The vice president of the Italian bishops, Francesco Savino, said Sunday that “migrants are brothers and sisters with their dignity, not packages to be thrown from one place to another.” And this Monday Francisco warned that we cannot “close the door to immigrants.” “The migrant must be welcomed, accompanied and integrated,” he underlined in a video message addressed to an assembly of the Italian Catholic Action.
The far-right Executive has harshly attacked the courts in recent days, accusing it of arrogating to itself powers that do not correspond to it, and insists that they cannot decide foreign policy – in this case which countries can be considered safe a priori be able to detain its citizens who request asylum at the border, in the event that they are rejected. The tension in the atmosphere is already reminiscent of the times of Silvio Berlusconi and his attacks on the judges, to whom he attributed ideological hatred and conspiracies to overthrow him, against the will of the people. Identical arguments are repeated.
The judiciary responds that the courts only apply the laws, which is what should be changed in any case. This is what Meloni will try, with an uncertain outcome, because in reality, according to jurists, it is the European legislation that should be modified. Meloni’s conviction to insist on his plan is also due to the fact that the Commission itself has announced its intention to review all the rules regarding which countries can be considered safe, to facilitate deportations. The Government reiterated that what Italy is doing will soon be done throughout the EU, starting from the entry into force of the European immigration pact in 2026.
This is the key to the confrontation between the far-right executive and the Italian courts; in what is considered a safe country, which, therefore, can be a priori repatriate a person requesting asylum, because there are no reasons that justify accepting his request. This is a fundamental piece of the controversial rapid protocol for border detention, management and rejection of asylum applications that Italy approved in March 2023 and which it wants to apply in Albania.
To apply this accelerated procedure, Italy has drawn up a list of 22 safe countries, whose citizens can be deported to Albania because their asylum requests are expected to be rejected. However, a recent October 4 ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU effectively reduced the list, leaving the safe countries to just seven. This has disastrous consequences for the Albania model: the main states of origin of immigration arriving via the Mediterranean, such as Bangladesh, Egypt or Tunisia, are eliminated from the list. This means that it has practically condemned the deportation plan to closure.
For the rest, the legal obstacle could be seen coming, because the courts of Palermo and Catania, in Sicily, where the majority of requests are processed, have already rejected 90% of validation requests in the last year and a half of the withholding. on the border. Now the government once again reaffirms its list of safe countries and we will have to see what the courts will do regarding the next deportation.
The list of 19 countries of origin now considered safe by Italy is the following: Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Morocco, Montenegro, Peru, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia. On the other hand, according to the criteria of the European ruling applied by the Court of Rome, only Cape Verde, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania would be safe.
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