The new immigration model agreed between Albania and Italy and which Ursula von de Leyen had presented after “Bao and Branches” collapsed before it was built, reports the analysis Guardian.

In practice, it turned out that neither the president of the European Commission nor the far-right prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, had taken into account the existing legislation.

The facility in Albania was supposed to host up to 3,000 migrants found in international waters from Africa bound for Europe.

Only a month after the much-hyped opening, only 24 asylum seekers have been sent to Albania and none remain there now. Another 5 spent less than 12 hours in a detention center, while the rest stayed around 48 hours.

Italian judges took a different view of the asylum deal

The migrants were eventually flown to Italy after the country’s judges ruled it illegal to detain them in Albania before repatriating them to countries, including Bangladesh and Egypt, considered “safe” by Rome.

In doing so, the judges were upholding an October 4 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) that a country outside the bloc could not be declared safe unless its entire territory was considered safe.

The Opposition parties have branded the Meloni deal a “complete failure” as it will cost around €1bn over five years and sparked a row between authorities and judges, who have been accused by far-right parties of blocking the project.

But observers say Meloni and her allies knew from the start that there was a risk the deal would not work.

Chiara Favilli, professor of European Union law at the University of Florence, said: “Since 1993, several European states have proposed solutions similar to Italy’s agreement with Albania. However, they were always rejected. Agreements like the one between Albania and Italy are incompatible with some fundamental rules.”

Months before the signing of the agreement between Albania and Italy, many NGOs, academics and experts had raised doubts about whether it could be considered humane or even legal under international law. Their opinions were ignored and the deal turned into a fiasco.

In the polls, Meloni is drowning

According to a recent poll, 55% of Italians do not agree with the immigration policy of the prime minister.

Credibility is at stake for a government that has made immigration a central campaign issue and has previously criticized its predecessors for spending public money on managing the migration crisis.

Case in point, it cost €250,000 to transport by sea on an Italian military ship the 8 men who arrived in Albania last weekend – more than €31,000 per asylum seeker on board.

In the face of the deal’s gradual collapse, the Italian government has lashed out at the judiciary, describing those who ruled against the deal as “politicized judges who would like to abolish Italy’s borders”.