EU return hubs hit Albania wall

The EU is finalising its first legal framework for holding failed asylum seekers in centres outside Europe. For Malta, where migration policy is never just a Brussels file but a domestic argument about borders, detention and responsibility at sea, the mechanism matters more than the slogan. The proposed Return Regulation, now in trilogue, the three-way talks between the Commission, Parliament and Council that produce final EU law, would allow member states to transfer rejected applicants to "return hubs" in non-EU countries. The only working model, Italy's centres in Albania, has processed roughly 1.5% of its stated target.

Two instruments, one direction

The Return Regulation, tabled in March 2025, would replace the 2008 Return Directive, the current EU rulebook on deporting people with no right to stay. The Directive set minimum standards but left enforcement to each member state, producing 27 different systems. The new text is a Regulation, so it would apply directly and uniformly across the EU without national transposition (Solidar).

Its central lever is Article 17, which creates a legal basis for detention facilities on non-EU soil (Verfassungsblog). The European Parliament backed it in March 2026 by 389 votes to 206 (Euronews). Trilogue talks broke off on 20 May without a deal; the next round is scheduled for 1 June (NAMPA/AFP).

Six days earlier, all 46 members of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights body and not an EU institution, adopted the Chișinău Declaration. It does not amend the European Convention on Human Rights. It says Convention protections, including the ban on torture and the right to family life, should not automatically stop deportations once national courts have assessed the risks (AP, BIICL). The Commission welcomed both instruments as "consistent" with its migration agenda (EU Perspectives). One builds the machinery. The other narrows the legal space in which courts may stop it.

What Albania actually shows

Italy's detention centres in Albania are the only live precedent. Giorgia Meloni announced the protocol in 2023, with a target of 36,000 transfers per year. By April 2026, Italy's National Ombudsman, the Garante nazionale, an independent oversight body, had counted 192 people who had passed through the facilities, with 56 deported (Pagella Politica). Even the government's own figure of 536 transfers comes to 1.5% of the annual goal. The five-year budget is roughly €670 million.

The practical problem is not a detail. Every deportation from the Albanian centres requires moving the person back to Italy first, because direct deportation from Albanian soil is not legally permitted. The hubs do not shorten the process; they add another step. Italian courts blocked the scheme in October 2024 as incompatible with EU law. The government then issued a decree reclassifying the centres from asylum-processing sites into deportation holding facilities. Albania's foreign minister has said the protocol will not be extended beyond 2030 (La Notizia Giornale).

The real bottleneck

Across the EU, only about 28% of return orders are carried out. That is a record high, but it still means seven in ten people ordered to leave do not leave (Eurostat). The blockage is diplomatic. Countries of origin often refuse to take back their own nationals. France issued roughly 156,000 return orders in 2025 and executed fewer than 15,000 (Le Figaro). Germany deported 4,807 people in the first quarter of 2026, down 22% year on year, despite an interior minister who has made return hubs his signature policy (Stern).

No third country has signed an agreement to host a hub. France refuses to take part, citing constitutional constraints. The French Senate concluded that the mechanism "risks undermining procedural guarantees" while addressing the wrong problem (French Senate).

The EU Court of Justice has still not ruled on whether offshore detention is compatible with EU law. An Advocate General's opinion in April, a non-binding legal recommendation to the court, opened the door in principle but drew a clear line between Italy's current arrangement and the broader hubs model the Regulation would create (EU Law Analysis). The full ruling, expected later this year, could restrict the whole framework before a single hub opens.

The Albania precedent shows legal machinery aimed at the wrong bottleneck. The obstacle is getting origin countries to cooperate. So far, that has not moved.