Italy Expands Offshore Asylum Deals with Tunisia and Egypt, Urges EU-Wide Adoption

Background

Italy has been at the forefront of European debates on migration since well before Giorgia Meloni came to power in October 2022, but it is her government that has most aggressively pursued a strategy of externalising asylum processing to countries outside the European Union. The approach, often described as the Albania model after a 2023 agreement Meloni struck with Tirana to process migrants intercepted at sea in Albanian-run facilities, has become the centrepiece of Rome's migration diplomacy. That agreement faced legal challenges in Italian courts, with judges citing European Court of Justice rulings on the designation of safe third countries, yet the government pressed ahead, amending domestic law to bypass judicial scrutiny and continuing to invest politically in the externalisation concept. Italy's geographic position as a primary entry point for irregular migration across the central Mediterranean has given successive governments both the political incentive and the moral authority, in Rome's framing, to demand structural change at the EU level. Arrivals from Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt account for the largest share of sea crossings, and it is along these routes that Italy has sought to negotiate agreements that would allow for screening and processing to occur before migrants reach Italian shores. The political salience of migration in Italy has remained consistently high across the Meloni years, with the government regularly invoking the issue to consolidate its domestic base and to project influence in Brussels, where it has positioned itself as the indispensable interlocutor between the EU and the southern Mediterranean neighbourhood.

The Italy-EU Offshore Model

On October 11, 2026, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced that Italy had signed expanded bilateral agreements with Tunisia and Egypt to establish offshore processing centres capable of handling asylum claims submitted by migrants intercepted in international waters or in those countries' territorial waters. The agreements, which come with a substantial EU funding component negotiated with the European Commission, build on the framework established by the 2023 EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding and its subsequent iterations. Under the new arrangements, individuals intercepted by Italian coast guard or naval vessels, or by vessels operating in coordination with Tunisian and Egyptian authorities, would be transferred to designated facilities in those countries, where their claims would be assessed against EU asylum standards by joint processing teams comprising officials from EU member states and European Asylum Agency staff. Those found to qualify for international protection would be offered resettlement pathways to Italy or other participating EU member states, while those whose claims are rejected would face return procedures to their countries of origin or to designated safe third countries. Meloni described the agreements as a model for a European Schengen of migration, arguing that the EU's external borders are a shared responsibility and that the burden of processing cannot fall disproportionately on frontline states. With the next European Council scheduled for later in October 2026, Rome has been lobbying hard among member states to place EU-wide externalisation on the agenda, proposing that the bloc negotiate framework agreements with transit and origin countries on behalf of all member states rather than leaving bilateral diplomacy to individual governments. The EU funding component is significant: Brussels has pledged substantial investment in border management infrastructure in Tunisia and Egypt as part of broader partnership agreements that also cover trade, energy, and counter-terrorism cooperation, reflecting the European Commission's strategy of linking migration management to wider geopolitical relationships with southern Mediterranean partners.

• Italy and Egypt agreed to expand existing cooperation frameworks to include offshore reception and processing facilities in designated zones on Egyptian territory, with capacity for several thousand individuals at any given time.
• The Tunisia agreement upgrades the 2023 EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding with specific operational protocols for joint maritime interception operations and streamlined transfer procedures.
• EU funding for the offshore infrastructure will be drawn from the EU External Action instrument and the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, with the European Commission providing technical oversight of facility standards.

Legal and Humanitarian Concerns

The expanded agreements have drawn immediate criticism from human rights organisations, legal scholars, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Critics argue that Tunisia and Egypt cannot be considered safe third countries under international and European law, pointing to documented patterns of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment of migrants and refugees, racialised violence, and the absence of functioning national asylum systems capable of meeting international protection standards. The European Court of Justice's rulings from 2024 onward established that member states must conduct individualised assessments of safety rather than relying on blanket national designations, a standard that Italy's critics say the new offshore model fails to meet in practice. There are also serious concerns about the practical operation of joint processing teams in environments where host country authorities may have differing incentives and where access for independent monitors, legal aid providers, and civil society organisations cannot be guaranteed. The UNHCR has reiterated that any offshore processing arrangement must uphold the principle of non-refoulement, guarantee access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, and ensure that individuals are not returned to countries where they face persecution, torture, or other serious harm. Legal challenges are anticipated in both Italian and European courts, and several EU member states with strong traditions of judicial independence in asylum matters have expressed reservations about endorsing the model at EU level without robust safeguards.

EU-Wide Implications

Italy's push to make externalisation EU-wide policy comes at a moment when migration has returned to the top of the European political agenda. The 2024 European elections strengthened the hand of centre-right and right-wing parties across the continent, and the new European Commission has signalled greater openness to third-country partnerships as a tool of migration management. Several member states, including Denmark, the Netherlands, and Austria, have expressed interest in exploring similar bilateral arrangements. However, the obstacles to EU-wide externalisation are substantial. Agreeing on which countries qualify as safe third countries at the EU level would require consensus that has proven elusive, and funding arrangements would need to be scaled dramatically beyond current bilateral commitments. Any framework agreement would also need to survive scrutiny from the European Parliament, where a significant bloc of members remains opposed to policies they view as incompatible with the EU's foundational commitments to human dignity and the right to seek asylum enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The outcome at the European Council will be closely watched as an indicator of whether the EU's migration architecture is shifting toward a model that prioritises deterrence and externalisation over internal solidarity and protection.

Sources

Sources

• Reuters
• BBC News
• The Guardian
• Politico Europe
• UNHCR
• European Council on Refugees and Exiles