Rome: A court in Rome on Friday ordered the transfer of a group of migrants detained in camps in Albania back to Italy, sources said, marking another setback for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s efforts to curb irregular sea arrivals.
The ruling affects 43 migrants from Egypt and Bangladesh who had been taken to Albania earlier this week after being rescued in the Mediterranean. This decision further complicates the Italian government’s controversial policy, which has already faced multiple legal challenges.
Meloni’s right-wing administration established two migrant detention facilities in Albania with the aim of processing asylum requests outside Italy. However, this marks the third instance in which Italian judges have intervened, ruling that migrants must be relocated to Italy since the scheme’s implementation began last October.
The opposition has welcomed the court’s decision.
“As any person with common sense would have imagined, yet another deportation of migrants to Albania has come to nothing,” said Nicola Fratoianni, a lawmaker from the Green-Left Alliance party.
The Italian interior ministry declined to comment on the latest ruling.
According to two sources familiar with the matter, the judges have decided to escalate the issue to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for further examination. In the meantime, the migrants will be transferred to Italy, with one source indicating that the relocation is likely to occur on Saturday.
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Albanian facilities have remained largely unoccupied since November, following an earlier court ruling that ordered detainees to be moved back to Italy. Judges had expressed doubts over the scheme’s alignment with a recent ECJ ruling, which stated that no country of origin could be classified as entirely safe if any part of its territory was deemed dangerous.
Italian courts argue that this ruling undermines the government’s plan to detain migrants from so-called “safe” countries in Albania, as authorities aimed to expedite repatriation for those whose asylum claims were expected to be rejected.
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The issue has deepened tensions between Meloni’s coalition and the judiciary, with government officials accusing the courts of obstructing the plan for political reasons.
The ECJ is expected to assess the legality of Italy’s migrant transfer scheme in the coming weeks to determine whether it aligns with EU regulations.
