EU court adviser sets limits on Italian detention centers in Albania

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June 24, 2026

CC BY 4.0 © Photo by Albinfo (Shëngjin in Northern Albania: Italian migrants detention center, 26.05.2025.)

On June 11^th, Advocate General Laila Medina delivered her Opinion in Joined Cases C‑706/25 and C‑707/25, Comeri and Sidilli. Two third-country nationals subject to removal decisions had been transferred from detention in Italy to Gjadër in Albania. After they applied for international protection, the Rome Court of Appeal asked whether Italy could conclude the bilateral protocol and whether its detention regime preserves EU safeguards. Advocate General Medina’s answer is that location may remain a national choice, but harmonised EU asylum law follows Italian control.

She found the Albanian sites under the exclusive territorial control of Italian authorities, which exercise legislative, executive and judicial powers there. The relevant asylum directives therefore apply. EU law does not prescribe where detention facilities must be located, so Italy may operate them in Albania. However, the grounds for detaining asylum applicants are fully harmonised and minimum guarantees are binding, meaning that protection must be equivalent to that available on Italian territory.

Safeguards move to the centre

This is not a broad approval of asylum centres outside of the EU. Some possible deficiencies have been uncovered, concerning for example confidential communications between lawyer and client; lawyers’ physical access and reimbursement of travel costs; family visits and communications; and immediate release when the judicial-validation period expires. In this case, keeping someone confined while transport to Italy is arranged would amount to unlawful de facto detention. The national court must assess whether these safeguards work in practice. A degree from March 2025 enabled people already held in Italian return centres to be transferred to Albania, creating the route at issue here. In April 2026, Advocate General Emiliou had found the arrangement compatible with EU law in principle if individual rights were fully preserved. The Opinion by Medina now looks at the matter in more detail, clarifying which parts of asylum law leave no room for bilateral variation.

Why the timing matters

Academic analysis anticipated this framing. Arguments that Italy’s effective control creates a sufficient connection for EU law stand opposite of warnings that divergent offshore procedures could undermine the Common European Asylum System and that externalisation may repeatedly produce detention, remedy and implementation problems; and that regional legal orders could add constraints. These academic notions have been operationalised within this new Opinion, stating that administration may be relocated, but responsibility cannot.

The timing is no coincidence. The EU Migration and Asylum Pact entered into application on June 12^th. On June 17^th, the European Parliament approved a Return Regulation that would permit so-called return hubs in third countries, pending formal Council adoption. Comeri and Sidilli could therefore become a template for wider EU externalisation. If the Court follows Medina’s Opinion, the Albania model may survive, but only under the logic that jurisdiction follows control. Operational distance cannot justify lower protection. That may make offshore schemes more costly while preventing third-country facilities from becoming lower-standard zones.

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