Le riammissioni e i respingimenti dei cittadini extra-Ue verso i Paesi dei Balcani occidentali: quale tutela legale?

Abstract

In recent years, the significant increase in arrivals of migrants from the so-called Balkan Route has generated, at the same time, the implementation of direct or indirect refoulement mechanisms by the States affected by the transit or arrival of third country citizens, lacking permits to enter the territory of the European Union but mostly in need of international protection or belonging to vulnerable groups, such as the unaccompanied minors.

More in detail, the States, including Italy, on whose practices the article focuses, have implemented or made operational bilateral readmission agreements with neighboring States deliberately ignoring the guarantees that the Euro-unitary legislation had in the meantime introduced and made binding for the Member States as well as those, pre-existing, of the Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees of 1951.

In retracing the approach of the Italian authorities in the implementation of readmissions and rejections of foreign citizens, ostentatious, at least initially, in operations on the Italian eastern border towards Slovenia, and (poorly) hidden from the Adriatic ports, the article proposes some reflections on the main profiles of illegitimacy of these operations and on the effectiveness of the legal protection of the persons concerned who, lacking written documents on the procedure applied and in the face of mechanisms for identifying and storing personal data that are not transparent or accessible to the parties, as well as due to the frequent failure to comply with the obligations of information on access to the international protection examination procedure, becomes extremely labile and uncertain.