BERN. Switzerland is preparing again to send asylum seekers back to Italy under the Dublin rules. Daniel Bach of the State Secretariat for Migration said on Friday morning that Italy has given written assurances, at a technical level, that the cases will be examined. The first transfers are being arranged and are expected in the coming days or weeks. “We are confident it will work this time,” Bach told SRF’s Heute Morgen.
The sentence “this time” is the whole story. In June the secretariat said Italy was willing to take Dublin cases from Switzerland again. Over the summer Bern said returns would resume from the end of August. They did not. On 18 September, Justice Minister Beat Jans told reporters that Rome had still not accepted any Dublin cases, and he called the situation “still very difficult”.
What Dublin is, and what Italy turned off
Dublin is the European rule that asks one country, usually the one where a person first arrived or first claimed asylum, to examine the application. Switzerland is not in the European Union. It applies the same system through its association agreements. If Italy is the responsible state, Switzerland can ask Italy to take the person back, and Italy is supposed to do the interview and the decision.
Italy switched that channel off in December 2022, shortly after Giorgia Meloni took office. The suspension covered Dublin transfers. It did not cover a separate bilateral readmission agreement. Under that agreement, Jans said in September, Switzerland can return to Italy up to 15 people a day who entered irregularly, and Italy has kept honouring it. Friday’s announcement is about the channel that has been shut, not about the 15-a-day arrangement that has kept running.
Why a written assurance is not yet a bus
Bach was careful about the tense. The assurances are written. The transfers are being arranged. He did not say that a coach had left, or that a named federal asylum centre had a departure time. People waiting on a Dublin decision should not treat a radio interview as a travel date. The last time Bern used the word “resume”, the calendar slipped from the end of August to a minister saying, six weeks later, that nothing had moved.
The political file with Rome is wider than asylum, and it moved in the other direction on Thursday. The Federal Council waived CHF 1.5 million in hospital bills for 12 people, insured in Italy, who were injured in the Crans-Montana fire. President Guy Parmelin told Meloni. That decision was expressly exceptional. It does not rewrite the health treaty, and it does not rewrite Dublin. It does tell you that Bern would rather settle practical arguments with Rome than leave them to sour.
What changes for applicants, and what does not
If the transfers now happen, the change is procedural. A person whom Switzerland and Italy both treat as Italy’s responsibility can be sent to Italy, and the asylum claim is examined there. The guarantee Bach cited is that the examination will take place. It is not a guarantee of a particular outcome, and it is not a new amnesty. People whose cases Switzerland itself is responsible for are not in this group.
Cantonal migration offices and counsels will be the first to see whether Rome’s letter produces acceptances. The test is dull and measurable: a transfer request answered, a date given, a person received, a procedure opened in Italy. Until those four things occur, Friday is a statement of intent with a better paper trail than August. Bach’s confidence is on the record. So is the last confidence, which did not become a journey.