CDM By Eric Lyman
ROME — This week Italy began sending would-be migrants intercepted on their way to Italy’s shores to two centers the Italian government is financing and operating in nearby Albania.
The initiative has been a controversial one, since in Albania, which is not a member of the European Union, asylum seekers will not have access to rights and protections guaranteed by the European Asylum System.
The idea was the brainchild of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the new face of Europe’s right wing. Officially, Meloni has argued that the plan would reduce the stress on Italian communities, also knowing that while the refugees are in Albania they’ll still be about as far from the Italian border as they were before setting sail from North Africa.
Without publicly commenting on the upcoming U.S. elections except for vowing to work with whoever wins, Meloni quietly seems poised to become Donald Trump’s go-to European partner if he is victorious. It’s easy to see why.
Most European leaders kept Italy’s Albania initiative at an arm’s length when it was first unveiled last year, but now, reports are that leaders from multiple countries are keenly watching to see how the Italy-Albania deal works out to evaluate similar plans. Slowly, the strategy called “third country relocation” is becoming part of the mainstream.
There’s more: due in a large part to lobbying from Italy, the European Union has adopted policies aimed at spreading out the cost of accepting refugees, stepped up patrolling the Mediterranean Sea, and at least in principle, to work to boost African economies to help convince potential migrants to stay home.
Impacting European policies on migration is one of many ways the 47-year-old Meloni appears to be coming into her own. She may now be Europe’s most influential right-wing leader, helping shape European policy on Ukraine, on the transition to green energy, on artificial intelligence, on surrogate pregnancies, and on monetary policy. This year, she even holds the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven (G-7) club of the world’s largest and wealthiest countries.
Global leaders ranging from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to new Prime Minister Keir Starmer from the U.K.’s Labor Party and from Pope Francis to billionaire innovator Elon Musk have met and compared notes with Meloni. Back in 2019, Italy became the largest economy to join China’s controversial Belt-and-Road Initiative and then, five years later, Italy under Meloni became the most high-profile country to abandon the program — yet Meloni was still welcomed with pomp and circumstance in Beijing by China’s Xi Jinping…
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