Public dispute over the asylum seeker: a new move from the Italian prime minister

Italy’s far-right government has made a new move to save its failed Albania model, in which the asylum search would have been outsourced outside of Italy.

The long-honored agreement with Albania already seemed to be coming to fruition when the Italian government transported the first asylum seekers to Albania last week. The Coast Guard had 16 male asylum seekers from Egypt and Bangladesh on board.

Uusi Suomi told the newsthat two of the asylum seekers were found to be minors and two were found to be in a vulnerable position. They were immediately brought back to Italy. On Friday, a Roman court ruled that asylum seekers do not come from countries classified as safe and they must all be returned to Italy.

A new decision from the emergency meeting

Prime minister Giorgia Meloni called an emergency meeting for Monday evening to deal with the failure. On Monday evening, Meloni and his ministers decided on a new law, through which the list of countries classified as safe is to be completely renewed. Melon’s board also wants the list to be updated every six months.

Italy’s decision on Monday was reported by, among others, the Italian public broadcasting company Rai and newspapers Corriere della Sera and The Guardianaccording to which Melon’s government aims with its new rules to overturn the court’s decision related to countries classified as safe.

The countries considered safe in the new law are Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Morocco, Montenegro, Peru, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia. Cameroon, Colombia and Nigeria were removed from the list of safe countries based on the EU court.

In addition, the new law would offer the appeals court the opportunity to re-evaluate decisions ordering the transfer of asylum seekers to Italy. From now on, the asylum seeker’s country of origin is also the primary condition for return. According to The Guardian, Melon’s government is trying to bind judges’ decisions to government regulations instead of international laws.

The argument went public

Disputes between the judges and the government have now escalated to the extreme in Italy. The argument became even more visible on Sunday, when Meloni published on social media an extract from a letter in which the judge Marco Patarnello warned that Meloni was stronger and more dangerous than the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. While in power, Berlusconi often clashed with the judiciary.

Right-wing politicians immediately claimed that the text proves the judiciary’s bias towards Melon’s government. Some criticized the view and pointed out that Meloni did not publish the rest of the text in which Patarnello emphasized that the judiciary should not join the political opposition, but defend the judiciary and the citizens’ right to independent judges.

The Albania model has been followed closely throughout Europe, because the president of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen has pondered it is a model for the EU’s new asylum policy. Von der Leyen now wants to investigate the establishment of return centers outside the Union. Unlike in Italy, von der Leyen has talked only about return centers, not about outsourcing the entire application process.