European countries hoping to mirror Italy’s controversial practice of sending some asylum seekers rescued at sea to overseas deportation centers have been dealt a setback by Europe’s top court.
On Friday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that while Italy could still utilize the centers it runs in the Albanian cities of Shengiin and Gjader, who can be sent there must be more closely examined to ensure that asylum seekers aren’t being sent back to dangerous situations in their home countries.
The court said that a country of origin can only be considered “safe” after it has been “subject to effective judicial review,” and that a country must be demonstrably safe for all its population, including vulnerable or marginalized groups.
The ECJ ruling will almost certainly impact new EU asylum regulations, which are set to take effect next June and are designed to allow member states to create their own “safe” country lists to expedite and outsource the asylum process.
The EU’s own list, meant to be a guide, includes Bangladesh, Columbia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco and Tunisia, despite human rights campaigners warning that those countries aren’t safe for all who live there.
While that partnership, a multi-million-euro investment of detention centers and “return hubs” in a non-EU country, has been viewed by some countries as a potential blueprint for success, a recent study by the University of Bari found that the Italian scheme has, so far, cost the country more than €74.2 million (approximately $86 million). The study called the scheme “the most costly, inhumane, and useless instrument in the history of Italian migration policies.”
Still, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and then European Council president Charles Michel lauded Italy’s 2023 landmark agreement, and in May 2024, the EU established a set of reforms designed to streamline Europe’s approach to managing migration and asylum, particularly around migrants from so-called “safe” countries.
Calling it “fair but firm,” the pact lays out wide-ranging reforms designed to ease the burden on countries that have historically taken the most asylum-seekers among the EU’s 27 member states. Whether this ECJ ruling will dissuade the development of the detentions hubs remains to be seen.
Posted by John3262005
1 Comment
Good. It’s terrible policy, and only seems necessary due to Europe refusing to in anyway make any attempt at integrating it’s immigrants. The U.S. being racist and fascist right now doesn’t mean we need to pretend that this policy isn’t absolutely horrible.