The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has called for an exploration of “return hubs” outside the EU in a letter to the bloc’s national leaders on irregular migration, citing a deal between Italy and Albania as a possible model.
EU leaders are to meet on Thursday and Friday for a summit on migration as the commission has said it will propose new measures.
Irregular migrants and asylum seekers arriving in Europe last year numbered less than a third of the 1 million people arriving in 2015 but it remains a very sensitive topic, influencing elections in most European countries and increasing far-right voter sentiment.
Germany, wary of a public opinion backlash against irregular migration before elections next September, has introduced border controls with all its neighbours, suspending the freedom of the passport-free Schengen zone. France, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Italy and Slovenia have also introduced border checks.
Italy’s agreement with Albania, an EU candidate country, is for it to host migration centres to process claims by male asylum seekers seeking to enter the union.
The first people to be sent to Albania under the controversial migration deal are due to arrive on Wednesday. The Italian interior ministry confirmed on Monday night that 16 men – 10 Bangladeshis and six Egyptians – who it said had arrived from Libya and were rescued on Sunday in international waters by the Italian coastguard were on board a navy vessel heading to the port at Schëngjin.
Some EU leaders have previously criticised schemes for external processing of asylum seekers, such as the previous UK government’s deal with Rwanda, but there is now growing appetite in the EU for a similar approach. Germany, once a relatively liberal voice on migration, has become more hawkish and is thought unlikely to block such initiatives.
Von der Leyen also praised the EU’s controversial deals with Tunisia and joint work with Libyan authorities, which have been widely condemned by human rights groups. She said irregular arrivals on the central Mediterranean route were down two-thirds in 2024 so far, which she attributed largely to these agreements.
The Italy-Albania pact, which human rights associations say is in breach of international law, was signed by the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, in November last year.
Meloni said at the time that in exchange for Rami’s backing for the centres, she would do everything in her power to support Albania’s accession to the EU. At talks in Luxembourg on Tuesday on Albania’s negotiations to eventually join the EU, Rama said, however, that his deal with Italy may not be easily replicated by other countries.
Von der Leyen said in her letter: “We should … explore possible ways forward as regards the idea of developing return hubs outside the EU, especially in view of a new legislative proposal on returns.”
As part of the Italy-funded deal, three facilities were formally opened in Albania last week: a centre with a capacity to host 880 asylum seekers, a pre-deportation centre known as a CPR with 144 places, and a small prison with 20 places.
In-depth screening of the men will be carried out when they disembark in Schëngjin, after which they will be taken to a centre at a former Albanian air force site in Gjadër, where the men will be held while waiting for their asylum applications to be processed.
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“We have been asked by others and we have said no,” Rama told reporters, pointing to the long history of close Italy-Albania ties.
The deal will cost Italy €670m (£560m) over five years. The facilities are being run by Italy and will fall under Italian jurisdiction. Albanian guards will provide external security.
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, was criticised by human rights groups and his Labour party backbenchers after expressing “great interest” in the migration pact during a meeting with Meloni in Rome last month while vowing to send £4m to support her crackdown on irregular migration.
Meloni once said Italy should repatriate migrants and then “sink the boats that rescued them”. In the past she has also called for a naval blockade of north Africa.
Elsewhere in the EU, Poland, which has presidential elections due in May, wants to temporarily suspend asylum rights for those crossing over from Belarus, a Russian ally, in a move many see as violating the EU’s charter of fundamental rights. And Finland, faced with people pushed across the border from Russia, suspended such asylum rights in July.