The last few years have seen a migration externalisation trend in Europe, where the handling of migrants is moved to third countries, thereby hoping to change the traditional arrival processes. Notable examples, such as the UK plan to send migrants to Rwanda and the Italy-Albania deal to process refugees in Albania, have made the news in recent years. Despite both plans not having come to full fruition, the Italian deal is not off the table definitively, even though the plan seemed to be losing its political foundations last year after numerous court challenges to its legality. There were important legal hurdles that signalled the end of the programme, with the latest negative court ruling in August. But not long ago, before that, in May, the first flight departed with migrants from places such as Albania under the name of the Italian government.
These mixed messages signal that the Italian government is not willing to give up the fight as easily. What are the updates from 2025 on the Italian-Albanian migration deal, and what way is it expected to go in the future? And while the two examples of migrant externalisation noted above are contested and perhaps failed, does the persistence of the Italian government mean that other countries in Europe might try their luck as well, starting a wider externalisation trend?
What is Externalisation?
Externalisation, in simple terms, means the moving of border processes to third countries, to lighten the load on a country’s internal systems. These activities could range from the administrative processing of asylum claims to the eventual removal of migrants to their countries of origin. Externalisation policies mainly affect migrants arriving through so-called “irregular ways,” by which, in recent years, the EU has seen an increasing number of people attempt to reach the shores of the European side of the Mediterranean Sea.
This externalisation is seen as a solution to the Dublin Regulation, which states that migrants are required to claim asylum in the country they first arrive in. This policy has not functioned well and has placed a disproportionate burden on Southern member states bordering the Mediterranean. 
The EU, as an overarching actor, has made several agreements with North African countries to establish similar migration policies over the past decade. These deals are often met with controversy, as exemplified by the EU-Libya partnership. Many of these countries have a poor record of human rights protection, and a partnership to regulate migration contradicts the EU’s values, which it wants to adhere to at home. Externalisation is not only a means to relocate the practical migration process away from Europe’s mainland, but also to disregard humanitarian concerns. A way of letting the other side of the Mediterranean deal with upholding human rights, which it inevitably fails to do.
Yet, interest in this type of policy extends beyond the EU itself, as individual member states explore their own options. Voters in Europe are increasingly in favour of stricter migration policies, and consultation between member states — or with European institutions — about migration practices has weakened, resulting in a tightening of borders. In recent years, several countries have done so, and EU officials have favoured these programmes — either on an EU-wide or national scale — aiming to lower the pressure on EU member states that lie on the edges of the continent. Commission President Von Der Leyen has expressed her interest in one particular plan: that of the Italian government, citing it as a preview of what the future of migration policy in Europe could look like.
So what does this Italian plan look like?
The Italian case
In October 2024, Italy seemed to be the first to put an externalisation plan into action. After months of debates and doubts, two detention centres were opened in the Albanian towns of Gjadër and Shëngjin. The Shëngjin processing centre would serve as the place of medical examination, checking whether or not people would be too vulnerable to process, and if indeed found to be fit enough to proceed to the next steps, would be transferred to the Gjäder detention centre.
Though located in Albania, the centres would operate under Italian jurisdiction with mostly Italian personnel onsite. The migrants being sent to Albania would only apply to refugees rescued at sea by the Italian authorities, who originated from a designated list of twenty-two ‘safe countries’ — a benchmark that would be the downfall of the programme. Furthermore, the Italian government also specified that vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and minors, would be excluded from this policy if they were to be on board such vessels rescued at sea.
The detention centres were meant to have multiple purposes: to streamline the asylum process while also acting as a deterrence, making migrants think twice about attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. Once they arrived at the Albanian centres, the migrants would be screened in a fast-track method, much quicker than the months typically required for asylum claims. Then, officials would determine eligibility for asylum in Italy. However, as most migrants brought to Albania were from ‘safe countries’ in the first place, the expectation was that most migrants would indeed be sent back to their country of origin.
But before being returned to their country of origin, rejected applicants would be detained in the asylum centres. Yet, as it is likely that governments of the countries of origin are not willing to cooperate with the Italian government, detention could be prolonged indefinitely. This possibility is what worried NGOs and institutions, such as the UN Refugee Agency, which monitored the centres from the beginning to ensure that all processes were conducted in line with international human rights standards.
Italy wants fewer migrants arriving on its shores, while Albania aims to progress its bid to become an EU member state. To both countries, it seemed like the perfect plan, a win-win situation. Yet, it did not materialise the way they would have liked.
Meloni vs. the Courts
In October 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was asked by other member states and Italian national courts to examine whether the list of ‘safe countries of origin’ proposed by the Italian government truly met safety standards, as some countries had debatable human rights records. Following the referral, migrants housed in Albanian centres at the time were sent back to Italy. Similar court-ordered returns happened twice more, in November 2024 and January 2025, as the national court in Rome ruled that the Albanian centres could not be used until the ECJ had determined its ‘safe’ ruling.
Thus, from the onset, Meloni’s party did not see eye to eye with the Italian national courts, causing a rift between the political and judiciary sides of the Italian government. And the European Courts have made Meloni’s problem even worse, with the ECJ contradicting the EU’s excitement that was shown earlier by Von Der Leyen.
The Flights
The court cases make it seem like there have only been setbacks for the Italy-Albania plan, but there have also been some, albeit small, successes. Although this, of course, depends on who you’re asking, they would surely be called successes by the Meloni government. The Italian publication Altreconomia reported that a flight departed from Rome for Cairo on the 9th of May this year. This flight had a stopover in Tirana to pick up migrants who were deported from the Albanian repatriation centres operated by the Italian government. There were five Egyptian passengers on board this flight.
This might not seem like much of a success — removing five passengers. However, rather than seeing it in practical terms, the five passengers perhaps symbolised a small victory for Meloni, showing that she was determined for the plan to be implemented, no matter what. Her government is portraying a willingness to spend a lot of money and go to great lengths to move these migrants away from Italy, even in small numbers. The fate of the five passengers remains unclear, and more flights have taken place since, in coordination with the embassies of Egypt and Nigeria. Could the flight on the 9th of May have set a new precedent, turning the tide on the court cases hindering the progress of the programme?
Has the story now really run its course?
In short, the answer is no. As much as these flights did take place, the promise of routine removals from the Albanian centres was cut short, and the attention was yet again redirected to the courts, as the last major setback to the deal came only this year, in August. The list of ‘safe countries’ originally put forward by the Italian government was finally ruled by the ECJ to indeed be contravening EU law. ‘Safe countries’ can only be labelled safe, so the ruling goes, if the entire population across that country is safe. Furthermore, asylum applicants should have the right to legally challenge the so-called safe status of their country if they feel that their individual circumstances prove otherwise. Thus, this makes it very hard to designate countries as fully safe, as, in the end, personal circumstances are what matter.
At a time when voters want swift action on migration, and judge governments on their action over months rather than years, speed and political attention are what Meloni was after. And such speed was indeed a key element of the Albanian centres. After proper examinations of the new arrivals, decisions on asylum were required to be made within 28 days. If asylum was granted to someone, they would be moved to Italy; if not, then deportation was foreseen to happen within one week of that decision. That is, if the country of origin was on the original safe list, which it most likely was if the applicant had their asylum claim rejected.
Not being able to rely on that list of safe countries anymore, these timeframes are now no longer possible, and the “hurry” element of the process is gone. Thus, this judgement has thrown the whole deal in jeopardy, as the list of safe countries was the basis of the Italian-Albanian deal, and, for that matter, any migration policy around the world that seeks to group and judge migrants by their nationality rather than the reason for migration.
From the beginning in October 2024 until the ruling in August of this year, all 73 migrants who were held in Albania were ordered to be returned to facilities on the Italian mainland by national judges. Except for the small number of reported flights, the Albanian centres have not been used for what they were originally built for, and as the Albanian deal cost the Italian state several times more than similar facilities on the mainland, the programme can definitely be called a debacle.
Beyond Italy
The summer ECJ ruling is likely to have a major impact on the way the European Union — especially on the member state level — sets up its future migration policies. A list of safe countries — which was extended only recently in the new EU Asylum and Migration Pact to include more countries — has to be scrutinised more strictly than was the case before, and individual appeals by migrants themselves to the designation of their country as ‘safe’ need to be possible. These two reminders of the ECJ ruling mean that the freedom of member states to expel migrants in a quick and easy way is restricted.
At the start, the Italian plan was seen as a hopeful example for anti-migration parties and voters, and countries such as Germany and the Netherlands were interested in similar plans. Now, the failure of the Italian-Albanian deal has made this picture more complex. The desire of the Italian government to go to extreme lengths to make sure a handful of migrants are moved abroad is bordering on the absurd. And yet, this ruling is likely not going to stop Meloni and her government from trying to come up with new ways to bypass the rulings and attempting to get top EU officials to change their minds.
In sum, the plan has failed in three ways:
- Firstly, throughout the years, NGOs have made it clear that basic human rights were being disregarded, harming the migrants themselves, who have already suffered more than they should.
- Secondly, the court cases have perhaps caused an irreversible rift between the political and judiciary, not only in Italy but also across the EU. This trend is not beneficial for anyone’s human rights, whether migrants or not.
- Thirdly, the Italian voters, the ones wanting a tougher outlook on migration, and the reason this plan was established in the first place, have been let down by the Meloni government. The latter failing to meet the promised numbers of removals, as well as having spent vast amounts of public money on a failed plan that the Italian state could have put to better use.
The Italian-Albanian plan has resulted in a practical and legal mess, and above all, a moral failure. But, if the tumultuous last months are anything to go by, this will not be the last we have heard of the plan, as there is always another twist in the story.
