ROME—Italian authorities sent a group of Eritrean migrants on a charted plane bound for Sweden Friday, kicking off a bitterly contested European Union plan aimed at redistributing migrants around the region and gaining some control over the chaotic flows of people across the continent.

Italian and EU officials saw off a group of 19 handpicked Eritrean migrants who have agreed to move to Sweden, the first in a plan to spread the burden of refugees who have flooded into Europe over the last couple of years. Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano and Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU's commissioner for migration and home affairs, were present at Rome's Ciampino Airport for the departure.

"This is a journey of hope," said Mr. Avramopolous. "This is the first step, but let's move ahead."

In September, after rancorous debate, the EU agreed on a binding plan to move 120,000 asylum seekers out of Italy and Greece—the two countries on the front line of the wave of arrivals—and share the burden by redistributing them among member states. This summer, the EU agreed to redistribute a total of 40,000 asylum seekers on a voluntary basis across the bloc.

The relocation plan is a cornerstone of an EU-wide response to the spiraling migration crisis that has brought hundreds of thousands of people to Italy and Greece so far this year. Recent months have seen chaos and tension as hundreds of thousands of migrants move across Europe in an effort to reach preferred destinations such as Germany and Scandinavia, sometimes amid dangerous circumstances. The success or failure of the first round of relocations could determine whether the program is expanded into a permanent system to manage a flow of migrants that shows no signs of letting up.

Early Friday, a chartered flight ferried 19 Eritreans to Lulea in northern Sweden, where they will stay for a few days before likely being settled in the northwestern city of Ostersund. The group is the first of nearly 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy to other EU member states over the next two years. Friday's group includes five women; all of the Eritreans had arrived by boat in recent weeks, according to a statement by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The UNHCR said further transfers will take place at the beginning of next week.

"The relocation program is an important step forward towards the stabilization of the European migrant crisis, even if much remains to be done," said the statement.

Write to Giada Zampano at giada.zampano@wsj.com, Anna Molin at anna.molin@wsj.com and Valentina Pop at valentina.pop@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 09, 2015 06:55 ET (10:55 GMT)