The Spanish PP votes in favor of creating deportation camps outside the EU as a bloc with the European Popular Party International

The European People’s Party (EPP) is moving forward on the path of rapprochement with the extreme right. The Conservatives have this Wednesday supported a non-binding motion in the European Parliament that supports the creation of deportation camps for asylum seekers outside the EU, like the one Italy has created in Albania, which its Prime Minister, Has been promoted by the far-right. Georgia Meloni. The EPP, which already supported the idea at its conference in Bucharest and before last week’s summit of European leaders, insists on the measure despite the setbacks dealt by the Italian justice system. albania model When he has barely started walking. The conservatives voted almost in unison, with the Spanish Popular Party also supporting the controversial measure, despite the fact that the party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijú, had refrained from explicitly endorsing the Meloni protocol last week.

The proposal, which has not received parliamentary support and which socialists, liberals and leftists have spoken out against, calls for toughening migration policy, financing “physical barriers” at EU borders with European money and reducing European Border Agency staff. There has also been a call to increase it. Frontex).

The vote in Strasbourg came shortly before a visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Albania, a country these days at the center of controversy for hosting events promoted by Meloni. The Commission does not rule out the idea of ​​exploring the creation of expulsion camps for asylum seekers outside the Community area, an idea it is considering within the framework of the reform being prepared for the deportation rules. Von der Leyen stressed in Tirana that Brussels is watching how the project develops.

With its support for the budget proposal in Strasbourg this Wednesday, the EPP has once again broken the cordon intended to isolate far-right forces. The conservatives, led by Manfred Weber, had agreed a text on the 2025 European budget with liberal groups. At the same time, he also allied with far-right groups to introduce several amendments such as withdrawing aid to deportation camps and the UN Refugee Agency.

Earlier, Popular Party MEP Dolors Montserrat had attacked the Pedro Sanchez government and its immigration policy. “The real call effect is called Pedro Sánchez,” the conservative said in a debate on immigration, in which he blamed the Spanish government for the increase in the arrival of irregular migrants through the Canary Islands route. “The Sánchez government’s inaction not only jeopardizes the security of the EU, but also puts thousands of migrants at risk of being used by mafias,” he said.

The Spanish President is one of the few European leaders who has opposed the internment camps promoted in Albania. This Wednesday, Iratxe Garcia, president of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament, also strongly criticized this model. “Indiscriminate deportations are illegal and represent the most unworthy abandonment of EU values,” he said during the debate. “It is unacceptable to succumb to the extreme right to bless an immigration model that violates human rights,” he stressed at the plenary session in Strasbourg.

Von der Leyen visits Albania

“We are following the development of this agreement very closely, but it is a bilateral agreement, so I will not comment on it,” von der Leyen said at a press conference with the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama. The German politician, who this Wednesday launched a route through the candidates from the Balkan countries to join the Community Club, has promoted Albania as one of the most advantaged students on its European path. And he has denied that the tiny country’s deal with Italy, by which Rome has set up two deportation camps there, will help it enter the EU.

In a letter to the leaders of the Twenty-Seven sent as an appetizer for a summit last week that focused on the migration debate, von der Leyen stressed that “practical lessons” should be prepared when exploring the Albanian model launch. Will work to do. These extermination camps are on the European level.

The idea adds wealth to the increasingly right-wing EU. It’s part of one of those “innovative solutions” to tackle irregular immigration that is talked about in Brussels as a euphemism for deportation camps and other radical ideas. The blow to justice to the Meloni Project – which determined that expatriates, Egyptians and Bangladeshis, cannot live in Albania, citing a recent European decision that reduces the number of nationalities that fit into this model – has given rise to this idea. It should also be replicated in other European capitals, but adapted to the needs of each country.

As the debate over irregular arrivals intensifies, the European Commission is looking for formulas to move forward parts of the migration deal agreed months ago after being stuck for years. The agreement should enter into force in June 2026, as European Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli explained in a plenary debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg this Wednesday.

Countries such as Spain, France and Germany had demanded that the application of this set of rules, which tightens the conditions for accepting asylum seekers in the Community area, be accelerated. It also establishes that all Member States must distribute solidarity quotas to incoming people or pay 20,000 euros into a common basket for each rejected refugee. However, the agreement is made up of dozens of rules and regulations and, according to European sources, it is difficult to advance only a part of the elements working together and could overload, for example, the countries in the first line of arrival.

Criticism of the agreement with Tunisia

The EU’s commitment to the externalization of immigration responsibilities is becoming increasingly widespread. Brussels is now considering how to approach African countries such as Mali or Senegal after a surge in arrivals of people in irregular status on the so-called Canary Islands route. The model of agreements with countries of departure or transit to send money in exchange for border controls is moving forward. Despite criticism from international organisations, it is already the preferred option of all member states.

The European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, has criticized the European Commission in a report for not being transparent about the human rights information it relied on before signing the deal with Tunisia, an agreement that includes border management Including EU funds for. The defender has also called on the Community Executive to establish clear criteria for suspending EU funding.