Italy has built two reception centers in Albania under its program, which aims to deter irregular arrivals to Italy but has been criticized by rights groups who say it restricts migrants' right to asylum.
The Libra, an Italian navy ship, docked at Shengjin, Reuters footage showed. Sixteen migrants were escorted into a newly built processing center at the port, ringed by a high metal fence and adorned with Italian and EU flags.
Italy has said only "non-vulnerable" men coming from countries classified as safe would be sent to Albania under the relocation scheme, to a limit of 36,000 migrants a year.
At present, there are 21 such nations on the Italian list. Last year, 56,588 migrants arrived in Italy from just four of them - Bangladesh, Egypt, Ivory Coast and Tunisia.
A model for Europe?
Rising tension in Europe over migration issues has seen many nations, including Germany and Poland, propose or adopt
tougher policies.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said this week that her country was setting an example for the rest of Europe with the Albanian scheme.
Meloni's statement was echoed by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala who said that it could serve as a model for other EU countries.
"It is important that this works out, because then we could work in a similar way with third parties," Fiala said.
He added that there is a planned meeting on migration between the presidents and prime ministers of several EU countries ahead of the upcoming EU summit in Brussels.
Fiala said that together with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he is trying to ensure that the EU’s migration policy takes into account the huge number of Ukrainian refugees the countries have taken in.
Human rights organizations disagree
A small group of protesters gathered at the Italian port on Wednesday to show their discontent over Meloni’s de-migration scheme. “The European dream ends here,” one banner read.
“These immigrants who have done long, dangerous journeys to make it to Europe are now rerouting to Albania so that they will go back to their home countries ... It's ending for us (the concept of) Europe as a place of democracy, of values, of human rights,” Arilda Lleshi, an Albanian human rights activist told Reuters.
