Italy on Tuesday defended its plan to send asylum seekers to camps in Albania for processing, telling a court it was responding to an "epoch-making" migration crisis in the Mediterranean.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's flagship policy is being challenged in an EU court by two asylum seekers from Bangladesh who arrived illegally in Italy. They are asking judges to block Italy from designating their country as "safe" and from sending them to Albania for fast-track asylum hearings.
The legal fightback has derailed Ms Meloni's efforts to begin sending migrants to Albania on Italian warships. But her government told the European Court of Justice that those on board would not be denied any rights and that "a complex investigation is not normally necessary" to reject asylum seekers from Bangladesh.
The process in Albania "is not a measure designed to be punitive in any way to those applicants from safe countries", an Italian government lawyer, Lorenzo D'Ascia, told EU judges on Tuesday. He said designating countries such as Bangladesh, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia as safe did not rule out that individuals could plead a special case.
The fast-track process means people who do succeed in claiming asylum would "quickly obtain protection and leave the limbo of waiting for the outcome of their application", he said. "Long procedures create the need for long-term reception centres.
"Were we to find ourselves faced with a normal, manageable migratory flow – and not an epoch-making instance like the one we have been dealing with over the past few years – the normal time-frame of the procedures would be those that we now call the accelerated time-frame."
Middle East migrants
Italy is the first port of call for tens of thousands of migrants every year who depart North Africa by sea in the hope of a new life in Europe. People from Bangladesh, Syria, Tunisia and Egypt made up more than half of last year's 67,000 arrivals, the fewest since 2020. More than 1,000 were reported dead or missing in 2024.
Ms Meloni's policy is being watched with cautious interest by other European countries, with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying there could be lessons to learn. Critics say the deportations to Albania are inhumane and part of a wider campaign by Italy against migrants and human rights groups.
The fast-track procedure means applicants have less time to appeal and can be detained in Albania while their case is heard. Ms Meloni signed a deal with the Balkan country for two centres in Shengjin and Gjader.
Dario Belluccio, a lawyer for one of the two men from Bangladesh, told the EU court that Italy had "betrayed values" of EU law. He said the government had shown a "willingness bend the right to asylum" by designating more than a dozen states as safe in response to naval escorts to Albania being blocked.
He said EU law gave Italy "no possibility" to include Bangladesh on the "safe countries" list if certain groups of people could not be considered as safe. Mr D'Ascia countered that women, children, and the sick and elderly would not be subject to the fast-track procedure.
