Migrant deportations to increase …says EU chief

• Ursula Von der Leyen and Giorgia Meloni in Brussels on Wednesday

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said the EU could “draw lessons” from a contested Italian policy of processing migrants offshore in Albania, as leaders of the 27 member states hold an EU summit focusing on migration.

Ahead of the Brussels summit, she wrote to EU leaders to say the EU’s executive would present a new proposal for legislation to increase deportations of migrants..

Italy has begun sending some migrants to a processing centre in Albania earlier this week.

Sixteen men were transferred to the Albanian port of Shengjin on Wednesday, but hours after their arrival it emerged that two were minors and two more were medically vulnerable and would therefore be returned to Italy.

Other EU countries have begun considering ways to process migrants in third countries.

On Wednesday, the Dutch government said it was weighing up a plan to send rejected asylum seekers to Uganda. —BBC