Switzerland to resume asylum transfers to Italy

Switzerland will send its first asylum seekers back to Italy from the end of August, SRF reported, nearly four years after Italy halted the transfers. The first flights have been booked, but the initial returns will involve only individual cases.

Magdalena Baker of the State Secretariat for Migration said the first transfers were scheduled to begin at the end of August. Switzerland and Italy’s foreign and interior ministries had agreed to resume transfers gradually, she said, to prevent the system from becoming overloaded.

Italy stopped accepting asylum seekers returned from other countries in December 2022, shortly after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni took office. Under the Dublin asylum agreement, Switzerland and other participating countries can return asylum seekers who are proven to have entered through Italy.

Italy’s renewed willingness to accept returns is linked to the European Union’s new asylum and migration pact, which took effect on June 12. The pact provides financial support and other assistance to Italy and other countries receiving asylum seekers, but only if they fulfil their obligations.

Italy may now accept only asylum seekers who entered after June 12. German media reported that Rome recently refused to approve the transfer of three asylum seekers because they had entered Germany before that date.

According to the State Secretariat for Migration, the first returns from Switzerland will involve asylum seekers who entered the country after June 12. The new procedures will initially be tested using recent cases, Baker said. The authority did not say whether Italy would also refuse to accept people who entered Switzerland earlier, but stressed that no agreement had been reached excluding their return.

Since the end of 2022, Italy would have been required to accept 3,784 asylum seekers from Switzerland, according to the State Secretariat for Migration. Because Italy refused, Switzerland had to process their asylum claims. Nearly 40 percent have since received protection in Switzerland and may remain there. More than 1,300 people are still undergoing the Swiss asylum procedure, while only 652 could now be returned to Italy.