The European Parliament has locked in a controversial new returns regulation that will allow migrants denied residency to be detained for up to 24 months and transferred to detention facilities in non-EU countries, a move that effectively exports Italy's Albania model to the entire Union. The regulation passed with 418 votes in favor, 218 against, and 30 abstentions, with support from the center-right European People's Party (EPP) and right-wing factions.
For anyone living in Italy, this marks a decisive shift in how migration enforcement operates across the bloc—and confirms the blueprint Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has championed since signing a bilateral protocol with Albania in late 2023. The new EU framework, part of the broader Migration and Asylum Pact that entered into force on June 12, replaces the previous directive and grants member states sweeping authority to expedite removals, extend detention, and establish "return hubs" beyond European borders.
Why This Matters
• Detention expanded: Irregular migrants can now be held for up to 2 years (with extensions if deemed non-cooperative or a flight risk).
• Offshore centers authorized: Countries can transfer migrants—excluding unaccompanied minors—to facilities in third countries under bilateral agreements.
• Italy's Albania centers validated: The Gjadër facility, operational since April 2025, is now seen as the legal template for the EU-wide scheme.
• Domestic law finalized: Italy's Chamber of Deputies approved a separate decree on assisted voluntary returns, codifying a €615 legal assistance fee for representatives helping migrants enroll in repatriation programs.
The Albania Precedent Goes Continental
Italy's Protocollo Italia-Albania, which established processing and detention centers on Albanian soil under Italian jurisdiction, has been the lightning rod for debate since its inception. The Gjadër CPR (Centro di Permanenza per il Rimpatrio) completed its first forced removal of five Egyptian nationals in May 2025. The government credits the arrangement—alongside stepped-up repatriation agreements with Tunisia, Bangladesh, and Egypt—with contributing to a reported 50% drop in irregular arrivals in the first six months of this year compared to 2025.
Yet the model has survived a gauntlet of legal challenges. Albanian judges initially suspended operations. The Rome Court of Appeals ruled one detainee's confinement illegal. And Amnesty International reported that a preliminary Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) opinion in August 2025 found the automatic presumption of "safe country of origin" incompatible with EU law. More recent CJEU Advocate General opinions in June 2026, however, found the protocol compatible with Union law—provided Italy maintains exclusive territorial control and full human rights safeguards remain intact.
The new regulation explicitly allows member states to replicate the offshore detention concept. It envisions "return hubs" in third countries where migrants subject to expulsion orders can be held pending removal to their country of origin or another designated safe state. Unlike Italy's Albania arrangement, which formally extends Italian jurisdiction and allows recourse to Italian courts, the EU-wide hubs may operate under looser accountability frameworks—a distinction that alarms legal scholars and NGOs.
What This Means for Residents
If you live in Italy, the immediate practical effect is twofold: the country now has EU cover to expand its offshore detention strategy, and it has formalized the legal scaffolding for assisted voluntary returns at home.
The Chamber of Deputies approved the assisted voluntary return decree with 147 votes in favor, 93 against, and 3 abstentions. The legislation corrects an earlier center-right amendment that would have paid lawyers directly through the National Forensic Council. Instead, the final text awards the €615 fee to any mandated representative who assists a foreign national in applying for and completing a voluntary repatriation program. This applies to schemes run by the Ministry of Interior in coordination with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), offering subsidized transport, documentation support, and reintegration assistance in the migrant's home country.
For legal practitioners and social workers, this means a clearer revenue stream for casework that previously lacked standardized compensation. For migrants in irregular status, it formalizes an incentive to cooperate—though critics argue the "voluntary" label is misleading when the alternative is prolonged detention.
Opposition: "Deportations Disguised as Returns"
The regulation's passage triggered sharp rebukes from the Partito Democratico (PD), Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), and Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (AVS), all of whom voted no. Sandro Ruotolo (PD) accused the EPP of chasing "the extreme right down the road of fear and propaganda," while fellow MEP Cecilia Strada warned the rules risk turning repatriations into "deportazioni"—deportations—by stripping procedural safeguards in favor of speed.
Human rights organizations have been equally unsparing. CGIL, Italy's largest trade union confederation, condemned the extension of detention periods, particularly for families with children, as a violation of both EU and international law. Save the Children and Melting Pot highlighted risks to minors, including coercive biometric screening of children as young as six and inadequate assessment of the child's best interest before transfer decisions. The Commissione Episcopale per le Migrazioni and Fondazione Migrantes, linked to the Italian Bishops' Conference, described the Pact as Europe "closing in on itself" and substituting genuine welcome with cash payments to third countries.
Legal experts note that the regulation permits detention for up to 30 months in cases of non-cooperation—double the previous EU standard. It also allows transfers to third countries that may have documented human rights concerns, such as Tunisia, Libya, Rwanda, Ghana, and Senegal, provided a bilateral agreement is in place. The principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returns to places where individuals face persecution or torture, becomes harder to enforce when processing occurs outside EU territory and judicial oversight is fragmented.
The Political Victory Lap
From the G7 summit in Évian, Prime Minister Meloni released a video hailing the vote as a "historic success" that vindicates her government's "innovative solution" to irregular migration. "The regulation provides for the possibility of opening return centers in third countries, effectively following the path opened by the Italian government with the Albania protocol—a solution that the Italian and European left tried to oppose in every way but which, thanks to this government, has today become an instrument available to all of Europe," she said.
Meloni framed the vote as proof that her administration's agenda—border defense, drastic reduction of landings, combating human traffickers, immediate repatriation—has shifted the EU consensus. She pledged to continue "point by point" execution of her electoral program, underscoring that the regulation aligns with her 2022 campaign promise to "change Europe."
Enforcement Timeline and Next Steps
The European Parliament's approval is the final legislative hurdle; the Council of the EU is expected to formally adopt the text in the coming weeks as a procedural formality, given prior inter-institutional agreement. Once published in the Official Journal of the European Union, member states will have a transition period to transpose the regulation into national law and negotiate bilateral agreements with third countries willing to host return hubs.
Italy already has repatriation agreements with Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Ghana, Morocco, Moldova, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia. The Council of the EU has designated Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco, and Tunisia as "safe countries of origin," which accelerates removal procedures for nationals of those states.
The Albania center at Gjadër can accommodate up to 880 people at a time, according to government figures. If other member states pursue similar arrangements, the EU could see a network of offshore detention facilities stretching from the Balkans to North Africa within the next two to three years.
The Accountability Question
One unresolved tension is jurisdiction. The Italy-Albania protocol explicitly places the Gjadër and Shëngjin centers under Italian law, meaning detainees can appeal to Italian courts. The EU-wide return hubs envisioned under the new regulation may operate under murkier legal frameworks—bilateral memoranda of understanding that bypass parliamentary ratification and limit judicial recourse. ActionAid and EuroMed Rights warn this could create "black holes" where migrants are detained indefinitely with no effective access to legal remedies, particularly if the hosting third country lacks an independent judiciary or robust asylum infrastructure.
The Court of Cassation has already referred a preliminary question to the CJEU on whether transferring someone already detained in Italy to Albania violates EU free-movement and asylum principles. That ruling, expected later this year, could force Italy—and by extension, the broader EU—to refine how offshore detention interacts with the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
For now, the regulation is law in waiting. Its real-world impact will depend on how many third countries sign on, how much funding the EU allocates, and whether domestic courts in member states—Italy included—permit large-scale transfers without case-by-case judicial review. Legal challenges are virtually guaranteed.
