The Italy-Albania migrant agreement has once again hit a wall after a court in Rome ordered the migrants to be returned to Italy.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the Italian Navy rescued 49 migrants at sea and transferred them to the Albanian port of Shingin under the Italy-Albania migrant protocol.<\/p>\n
On Friday evening, the Rome Court of Appeals refused to authorize their detention, and the remaining 46 migrants were sent back to Italy on Saturday. Six migrants had been sent back to Italy after arriving in Albania because they were minors or in poor health.<\/p>\n
The UN-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM), responsible for pre-screening migrants based on medical assessments, was conspicuously absent this time, according to Democratic Party MPs who travelled there to oversee the arrivals in Albania.<\/p>\n
The court’s decision follows a lower court ruling in October that referred the case to the Court of Justice of the EU on 25 February for a final judgement.<\/p>\n
The expected blow at EU level<\/b><\/p>\n
Italian judges had ruled that sending migrants to Albania contravened an EU court ruling that member states must assess the security of a country as a whole.<\/p>\n
Friday’s ruling came amid a series of blows to the Italy-Albania agreement, which has repeatedly hit obstacles since its inception. The government backed down again on 11 January after judicial setbacks.<\/p>\n
Since the implementation of the agreement, not a single migrant transferred to Albania has had their detention confirmed; they have all been sent back to Italy.<\/p>\n
The estimated five-year cost of construction, personnel management, travel, per diems, police housing and the recruitment of new judges is \u20ac653.5 million.<\/p>\n
Meloni-judiciary row grows<\/strong><\/p>\n The judges’ rulings are fuelling discontent within the government, which is being investigated for repatriating Libyan warlord Almasri, indicted by the ICC, last week.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi are currently under investigation.<\/p>\n Meloni said, \u201cIf some judges want to govern, they should stand for elections and govern,\u201d and described the decision as \u201cdamaging to the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Meloni had repeatedly defended the Albanian Protocol and insisted that she would continue to push for it until it became operational.<\/p>\n According to Italian media, government sources said they were \u2018surprised\u2019 by the latest developments and argued that \u2018there is no need to wait for the judgement of the European Court of Justice\u2019.<\/p>\n Members of the ruling majority continued to accuse the judiciary of political bias, while the opposition characterized the initiative as a waste of public money and a political failure.<\/p>\n Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein said, \u201cThe government’s refusal to comply with European law and court rulings is leading to an extraordinary waste of taxpayers\u2019 money.\u201d<\/p>\n Schlein’s party estimates, \u201calready exceeds one billion euros.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicola Fratoianni, leader of the Greens and the Left Alliance said the outcome was \u201cinevitable\u201d and warned, \u201cMeloni must not use this incident to portray himself as a victim or to shift blame to the judiciary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Italy-Albania migrant agreement has once again hit a wall after a court in Rome ordered the migrants to be returned to Italy. On Monday, the Italian Navy rescued 49 migrants at sea and transferred them to the Albanian port of Shingin under the Italy-Albania migrant protocol. On Friday evening, the Rome Court of Appeals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5834,5847,3634,5841,612,5849,5835,5842,5832,5833,5840,5838,5836,5843,5837,5844,5848,5839,5846,5845],"class_list":["post-7582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-albania-migrant-deal","tag-elly-schlein-migrant-criticism","tag-eu-law","tag-eu-law-migrant-policy","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-international-migration-law","tag-italian-court-ruling","tag-italian-judiciary-vs-meloni","tag-italy-albania-migrant-agreement","tag-migrant-agreement","tag-migrant-agreement-controversy","tag-migrant-cost","tag-migrant-detention","tag-migrant-detention-albania","tag-migrant-repatriation","tag-migrant-repatriation-italy","tag-nicola-fratoianni-migrant-deal","tag-political-opposition","tag-political-opposition-migrant-deal","tag-taxpayers-money-migrants"],"yoast_head":"\n