The European Commission has presented a provisional list of seven countries outside the bloc considered insurance for migrant repatriation, which will be distributed on Tuesday for evaluation by the Member States and currently matters mainly to Italy.
The list of “third parties of secure origin” is composed of Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco and Tunisiathese are the states to which Brussels consider it safe – that is, without danger of persecution or torture – return asylum applicants who are unable to be approved to stay in Europe.
A Presentation of the final list should take place in Junefollowed by a review of the concept of a third insurance country in the legislation of the (EU), in the scope of the migration pact adopted last year.
The concept should begin to be officially used from 2026.
This issue has become urgent mainly for Italy, which created two clandestine migrant host centers in Albania to make external processing of migrants to the EU for a country not belonging to the EU as a determination form.
Although the two centers were inaugurated in October 2024, none of the three groups of migrants that Italy transferred to that country could keep up there.
According to the agreement signed between the Italian and Albanian government, the migrants that could be transferred to the reception centers had to be men, who traveled clandestine and were rescued at sea, being considered healthy and from safe countries.
Italian courts, referring to a decision of the they prevented the transfer of the first three lots of migrants, Egyptians and Bengales, to the centers in Albania at the end based on the argument that came from states considered insecure.
The position of the Italian judges triggered a lit conflict with the government of the Italian Prime Minister of far right, Georgia Meloni, and led the centers in Albania to have been empty and unused.
However, Italy did not give up the idea that, however, became more popular among EU states.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, praised the Italy-Albania protocol, while several other EU members expressed interest in it, as well as the United Kingdom.
Following the rejection of the first three lots of migrants, the first Albanian processing center for migrants collected at sea was transformed into a migrant detention and repatriation center that were already in Italian centers.
