The first group sent to Albania by Italian authorities and seeking asylum from the European Union had not been there for long.

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s controversial plan to keep thousands of asylum seekers in the Balkan country while their requests are assessed was blocked by the courts shortly after the first refugees arrived in Albania.

The aim was to not disembark male refugees from countries deemed “safe” who were caught in Italian waters while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, but instead to transport them to Albania.

Last week, a court in Rome ruled that the group of about a dozen men from Egypt and Bangladesh could not be detained in Albania under the plan because their home countries were not deemed safe.

The decision, which would see the men then transferred to Italian territory, has drawn harsh criticism from Meloni’s right-wing government, which is now trying to find a way around the legal hurdle.

( Albanian parliament approves migration centers agreement with ItalyOpens in new window )

Two detention centers were built in Albania to accommodate 3 thousand refugees coming from Italy at the same time. The facilities are considered under Italian jurisdiction and asylum cases are evaluated by Italian authorities. Asylum seekers whose applications are successful will be allowed to enter Italy as refugees; Those whose cases are rejected will be deported.

“The government is determined to move forward, the money invested is already significant,” says Elisa de Pieri, Amnesty International’s researcher focusing on Italy and migration policy. He says the Albanian plan would be a “symbolic deterrent” that would prevent migrants from crossing by sea to Italy.

Amnesty International and other non-governmental organizations criticized this policy for outsourcing asylum seekers beyond EU borders. The fear is that this will result in asylum seekers having difficulty accessing legal advice about their cases or people living in alarming conditions.

Many other EU countries now see the Albania deal as something the bloc could draw inspiration from.

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When leaders of the 27 member states met for a summit in Brussels last week, many were pressing for the EU to take a tougher stance on asylum. According to various sources, leaders spoke one after another about the pressure their states were subjected to. In particular, there was an effort to increase the number of “returns” (another name for deportation) of those who were unable to seek asylum.

The Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Greece and others had raised the possibility of establishing deportation centers outside EU borders earlier this year. These would be centers in other countries where asylum seekers whose requests were rejected could be sent and where attempts were made to deport them to their home countries. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen recently said the commission would look at the idea.

Chiara Scissa, a postdoctoral researcher on EU law and asylum policy at the University of Bologna, says efforts to push for faster decisions in asylum cases risk sending people back to places where they may be at risk. “Returns must be carried out in absolutely 100 percent compliance with EU law, human rights law and asylum law… We do not see this in the current Italy-Albania agreement or in these hypothetical repatriation centres,” he says.

According to Dutch Greens MP Tineke Strik, these centers may also be an attempt to exceed the obligations of EU states towards refugees. He, who was previously the European Parliament’s chief negotiator on the draft extradition bill, said the hub idea was a “worrying” distraction put forward by politicians who want to appear tough on immigration.

( Not enough data collected on immigrants’ integration into Irish society, European body saysOpens in new window )

He is critical of the new right-wing Dutch coalition government, which includes the far-right Freedom Party, for its failed plan to send refugees to Uganda. Strik says it suits anti-immigrant parties on the right to keep the issue of asylum at the top of the political agenda without actually addressing the problems in the system. “This gives me the impression that they want to stay in crisis mode because it serves their political interests.”

There is a consensus among European politicians, officials and observers that the political center ground on immigration is shifting to the right. “I think what you’ve seen over the years is that the debate has clearly evolved in one direction,” says a senior EU official. Preventing irregular migration is a black-and-white stated goal of the EU, he adds, which would have been “unthinkable” a few years ago. “The dynamic and views have changed.”

“The focus is on returns and border control; that’s what the EU also wants to do; try to strengthen the borders as much as possible in order to have more control over those who try to enter the stronghold of Europe,” says Scissa, a University of Bologna researcher.

Speaking recently, von der Leyen said she plans to propose new EU legislation on returns. Currently, only a fifth of asylum seekers deemed to have no claim to remain in the EU are being “sent back” to countries outside the bloc, the commission chief said.

The problem is that the countries where refugees come from often do not want to cooperate and do not accept returns. Lena Düpont, a centre-right German MP for the Christian Democratic Union, says this is a clear “bottleneck” in the system. He says the EU should take advantage of offers of more favorable visa programs to accept returns from countries of origin.

Even within the EU, there has been no agreement for years on accepting the transfer of people seeking asylum.

( EU leaders push for tougher stance on asylumOpens in new window )

In accordance with the regulation known as the Dublin regulation, asylum seekers’ applications must be evaluated in the first EU country where they apply for protection. In fact, many then move on to Germany or other western member states. Frontline countries such as Italy and Greece, which are the destinations for those crossing the Mediterranean, do not object because it eases the pressure on them. Frustration with this secondary movement was one of the reasons why Germany introduced checks at all its borders.

The number of people being sent back to the EU country where they first sought asylum is very small. For example, in Ireland, according to Ministry of Justice figures, only 32 asylum seekers have been transferred to other member states under Dublin rules since 2020.

These rules are being overhauled as part of a major EU-wide asylum policy reform that will come into force in mid-2026. The migration and asylum agreement, signed into law earlier this year, focuses on burden sharing to help frontline states. This will enable other EU countries to agree to accept asylum seekers or pay a financial contribution of €20,000 per person to member states that refuse to do so. The changes will allow decisions to be made faster and move more asylum processing to member states’ borders.

Greece has built impressive border facilities in recent years that could become more common under the agreement. “Closed controlled access centres” on the Aegean Islands of Kos, Samos and Lesbos are described as prison-like, with high, barbed wire fences. A Council of Europe report published in July said asylum seekers in the center of Kos were subjected to “inhuman and degrading” treatment, with overcrowding leaving people sleeping on floors without mattresses.

Many national leaders, who continue to face pressure from the country’s anti-immigrant and far-right parties, are pushing for parts of the EU migration deal to come into effect sooner. Some do not expect the EU to act as a group. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently announced plans to close his country’s border with Belarus to refugees.

( Poland’s Tusk says he will protect Poland’s security at EU summitOpens in new window )

At the last European Council summit, Tusk argued that Russia and Belarus were bringing immigrants from the Middle East and Africa and pushing them over their borders into the EU. This, Tusk told leaders, was Russia’s attempt to use immigration to coerce European democracies on the hybrid front of its war in Ukraine.

According to several sources with knowledge of the discussion, there was a sense in the room that Poland should be given space to prevent people crossing its eastern border from seeking asylum. The lack of any real protest or pushback against the move was another clear indication that asylum policy in Europe was going in only one direction: to the right.

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