EU stays on the sidelines over migrant deal between Italy and Albania

TIRANA, Albania — A top European Union official on Wednesday refused to be drawn on an opinion of an agreement between Italy and Albania to process some migrants in centers set up in the tiny Western Balkan country, saying only that it was being closely monitored.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “from the very beginning on we have been very clear that we are monitoring the development related to this agreement very closely.”

Under a five-year deal signed last November by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, up to 3,000 migrants picked up by the Italian coast guard in international waters each month will be sheltered in Albania. Their asylum requests will be processed there.

Italy has agreed to welcome those migrants who are granted asylum, while those whose applications are rejected face deportation directly from Albania.

The first 12 migrants sheltered last week in Albanian centers were brought back to Italy three days later, following a ruling by Rome judges, who rejected their detention, arguing that their countries of origin — Bangladesh and Egypt — were not safe enough for them to be sent back.

Italy’s far-right government on Monday approved a new decree aimed at overcoming judicial hurdles that risked derailing a controversial migration deal with Albania.

Under the new decree — which is effective immediately — the government shortened the list of countries considered “safe” by law, meaning that Rome can repatriate to those countries migrants who didn’t win asylum using a fast-track procedure.

The court ruling was an early stumbling block to the five-year deal between Italy and Albania.

Italian Premier Minister Giorgia Meloni has strongly pushed the deal, defending it as a new “model” to handle illegal migration.

In a letter to EU leaders last December, a month after the deal was signed in Rome, von der Leyen praised “important initiatives” on restricting migration by some of the bloc’s 27 member countries, including “the operational arrangement between Italy and Albania.”

“This serves as an example of out-of-the-box thinking, based on fair sharing of responsibilities with third countries in line with obligations under EU and international law,” she wrote.

Von der Leyen was in Tirana on Monday as part of a regional tour to reassure the Western Balkan countries that the enlargement of the trade bloc remained one of its priorities. She only said that the Italy-Albania deal was “a bilateral agreement” which the EU would not comment on but only monitor.

Human rights groups and NGOs active in the Mediterranean have slammed the agreement as a dangerous precedent which conflicts with international laws.

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