European Commission silent on Italy’s direct repatriation operation from Albania

Brussels – Italy is slowly – and quietly – pushing further and further the red line of what it can do to combat irregular immigration. It does so away from prying eyes in the Italian center of  in Albania, from where, on 9 May, it allegedly repatriated five Egyptian citizens without letting them pass through Italy. An operation that is hardly compatible with current European legislation and of which the European Commission seems to have been left in the dark.

Brussels is either turning a deaf ear or the Italian authorities did not inform them. Yesterday (24 June), the spokesman for the European Commission for Home Affairs, Markus Lammert, stated that “according to our information, so far in the center (in Gjadër, Ed.) national law applies, and this is in line with EU law.” In essence, what makes the existence of the facility possible is the legal construction, according to which it is technically not on Albanian territory but on a fictitious extension of Italian territory.

However, this means that unless the Italian government lets charters take off directly from the Gjadër center, repatriated migrants must first be brought to Italy. Boarding them on a flight at Tirana airport constitutes an illegal transfer under European law. According to data from the Viminale, from 11 April – when Gjadër reopened as an immigration detention center (CPR) – to 21 May, 24 migrants held there were returned to Italy to be repatriated to their countries of origin.

However, Altraeconomia revealed on 9 May that a plane left Rome Fiumicino for the Albanian capital, from where it departed for Cairo with the five Egyptian citizens from the Gjadër center on board. According to Gianfranco Schiavone of the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASGI), “it is in no way admissible to envisage taking a person out of the detention center area, onto Albanian territory, and then repatriated from there.” Moreover, Schiavone points out, “the police operations conducted outside the Gjadër center on Albanian territory regarding the persons transported are devoid of jurisdictional control and therefore take place without any legal cover.”  The fact is that the European Commission, which as guardian of the Treaties should be speaking out in the face of such a violation of EU law, proposed on 11 March a clampdown on repatriations that envisages the creation of detention centers in third countries from which migrants who are not entitled to asylum in the EU can be directly repatriated. An assist to Italy, which, however, has decisively anticipated what a proposal that is only at the beginning of a long legislative process envisages.

According to Cecilia Strada and Alessandro Zan, MEPs of the Democratic Party, the operation is “extremely serious and incompatible with European law.” The two accuse the government of “wanting to pass it over in silence.” In a question supported by MEPs from the Dem, the Green Left Alliance, and the 5 Star Movement, they asked the European Commission to reveal whether it was aware of what had happened and what action it “intends to take to ensure full compliance with EU law on returns.”