Giorgia Meloni counterattacks. The Italian government combining the right and the far right met this Monday, October 21 at the end of the day. The objective: adopt a decree aimed at circumventing the courts’ opposition to a controversial agreement on migrants concluded with Albania.
The government led by the head of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia (FDI) party signed an agreement with Tirana at the end of 2023 providing for the creation of two centers in Albania, from where migrants rescued in the Mediterranean will be able to apply for asylum. The five-year agreement between Rome and Tirana covers adult men intercepted by the Italian Navy or Coast Guard in their search and rescue zone in international waters.
Judicial drama
But there was a legal twist on Friday, October 18: the judges of the Rome court decided that the first 12 migrants from Egypt and Bangladesh sent to Albania had to be returned to Italy. A snub for the far-right leader who intends to give her “Albania plan” as an “example” to Europe, and in which Italy had planned to invest 600 million euros in five years.
The ministerial decree aimed at circumventing this legal obstacle, discussed during a Council of Ministers this Monday evening, includes in law the list of 22 countries considered “safe” by the government, for all categories of people and all territories. . This decree must come into force immediately and then be promulgated by Parliament, where the government has a majority. This means that Rome will be able to urgently process asylum requests from migrants from these countries from Albania.
The Italian court, which invalidated the detention of the 12 asylum seekers on Friday, cited a ruling rendered on October 4 by the European Court of Justice on countries of origin considered “safe” by host countries. Rome recently expanded the list of “safe” countries of origin, defined as states where there is no persecution, torture or threat of indiscriminate violence, to 22 countries. But this list included countries where certain regions were not deemed “safe”. However, the European Court of Justice considers that EU member states can only designate entire countries as safe, and not parts of countries.
“I don’t think it is up to judges to say which countries are safe, but to the government,” Giorgia Meloni criticized Friday. “I am sorry that while all of Europe is watching with interest something that Italy is doing, as always they are trying to put obstacles in our way,” the Prime Minister denounced to journalists.
“The judges are against me”
Italy is on the front line of arrivals of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from the coasts of North Africa. Giorgia Meloni, elected in 2022, had promised to stop migrant landings, accelerate repatriations and force her European neighbors to help the peninsula more.
The government has already come up against the law when it wanted to oppose the rescue of migrants at sea by NGOs. Tension rose a notch on Sunday when Giorgia Meloni disclosed on social networks extracts from the letter of a prosecutor’s judge to an association of magistrates. In it, Deputy Attorney General of the Supreme Court Marco Patarnello warns against Giorgia Meloni, “stronger and more dangerous” than former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. “We must remedy this,” says judge Marco Patarnello in this internal letter, proof according to Giorgia Meloni that the judges are acting against her government. “The judges are against me,” lamented the Prime Minister, like the poster La Stampa on the front page of this Monday’s edition.
The Italian opposition denounced the truncated publication of this extract and stressed that Giorgia Meloni had not published the rest of the text, where the judge adds: “We must not engage in political opposition, but we must defend the courts and the right of citizens to independent justice.”
As recounted International Mailthe controversy grew so much that it even made Sergio Mattarella react. Confined to a neutral role, as required by the Italian Constitution, the President of the Republic nevertheless launched a call to order on the subject of relations between Italian institutions: “Collaboration, the search for compromise and the sharing of points of view are essential for their proper functioning and for the services they provide to the community.”