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Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, has said Sir Keir Starmer is taking “great interest” in her country’s plan to move the processing of asylum claims offshore to Albania.
Speaking after talks in Rome, the UK prime minister said “the British are very good at pragmatism”, adding: “We will look at what works.”
Meloni said that the “world is watching” whether Italy’s Albanian migration deal would be effective, but admitted it was still an experiment and was some weeks away from being formally launched.
“The model that the Italian government has envisioned . . . is a model that has not been tried anywhere,” she said. “If it works — as I believe it will, everyone will understand that it can become a cornerstone for dealing differently with the issue of migration flows, also because of the deterrence it produces.”
Meloni said that migrants held in the Albanian centres would remain under Italian jurisdiction, with their asylum claims processed by Italian officials under EU law, and those deemed genuine refugees would be taken to Italy.
“Migrants will have the same treatment that they would have had in Lampedusa or other Italian centres, just not on Italian soil,” the rightwing Italian premier said. “You can’t argue that what is being done in Albania violates human and migrant rights.”
Starmer draws a distinction between the Albanian scheme — where migrants’ asylum claims are processed with successful claimants being allowed to enter Italy — and “the gimmick” of the previous UK government’s Rwanda scheme, in which people could only claim asylum in the central African country.
The Rwanda scheme was scrapped by Labour after it won the UK general election in July.
Starmer and Meloni come from different ends of the political spectrum but, in talks at Rome’s 17th-century Villa Doria Pamphili, they found common cause on the challenge of tackling irregular seaborne migration.
UK home secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed earlier on Monday that the UK is looking at an Italian-style asylum processing scheme in Albania, as London seeks to prevent more small boat crossings in the English Channel.
Cooper said the UK was also interested in tackling organised crime with European partners as well as working with other countries “upstream” to stop people leaving north Africa in the first place and “major returns” for people who did not have a right to be in the country.
Downing Street confirmed Starmer wanted to “work more closely with countries upstream” but expressed concern about reports that some migrants intercepted in Tunisia had been dumped in the desert.
“Obviously we take that incredibly seriously,” a spokesman for Starmer said. “The principle that we’ll be following in everything that we do is that it is workable, affordable and in line with international humanitarian law.”
Starmer has backed the so-called Rome Process adopted by Meloni last year, which saw Italy forge deals with north African countries including Tunisia to tackle people-smuggling gangs in countries and return migrants.
“Human traffickers are heinous organisations with tentacles that spread everywhere,” Meloni said during the joint press conference. “No nation by itself can be effective in dismantling these networks of traffickers.”
On Sunday, French authorities said eight people had died trying to cross the English Channel after their boat got into difficulty, taking the death toll in attempted crossings to 46 so far this year.
After the talks with Meloni, which saw the leaders stroll around the Doria Pamphili’s grounds, Starmer said Britain would contribute a relatively meagre £4mn to the Rome Process to support development in Africa.
Italy’s government, led by Meloni’s rightwing Brothers of Italy party, has curbed irregular migration by about 60 per cent from last year when it had surged sharply, drawing keen interest from British politicians.
Rishi Sunak, former Conservative prime minister, forged a close personal relationship with Meloni, and Starmer’s visit to Rome confirms he also sees the Italian premier as a key ally in the fight against illegal migration and in attempting to “reset” Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU.
Starmer announced at a press conference that Leonardo, the Italian defence group, would be investing £435mn in 2024 at its Yeovil site in Somerset and in technology and research across the UK.
Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome
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