Thewesternbalkans
Prime Minister of Italy, Georgia Meloni, visited on June 5 Albania to tour migrant centers and thank the government of Prime Minister Rama for agreeing to take in thousands of asylum seekers while Italy processes their applications.
Meloni announced that the Italian-funded migrant reception centers in Gjadër and Shëngjin will open on August 1, following a postponement from the originally scheduled date of May 20.
Meloni’s visit started at Gjadër, a former military airport 80 km north of Tirana, where construction of one of the two migrant centers has begun. She next visited Shëngjin port, where a reception center with housing units and offices is nearing completion. The center covers an area of 4 000 square metres and is encircled by a 5-metre-high fence topped with barbed wire.
“The facility is ready, yesterday the works were completed and it passed under Italian management,” said Sander Marashi, director of the port of Shëngjin.
Italy is to set up two migrant hotspots and a center to hold migrants awaiting repatriation for a total expenditure of almost 34 million euro a year.
The agreement, signed by Meloni and Rama in Rome in November, provides for the reception and processing of up to 3 000 migrants and refugees rescued by Italian ships per month.
People with special needs such as the elderly, children or pregnant women, migrants and refugees who have been rescued by NGO-run ships and people who land directly on Italian soil are to be excluded from the deal.
The facilities would be fully run by Italy while it fast-tracks migrants’ asylum requests. Both centers are under Italian jurisdiction while Albanian guards will provide outside security.
Comment: The migrant agreement between Italy and Albania drew strong criticism from opposition parties and human rights organizations in both countries. In Albania, 30 opposition lawmakers unsuccessfully challenged the agreement in the Constitutional Court on human rights grounds. The Italian opposition has slammed the deal as creating a new Guantanamo and allegedly breaching the Italian Constitution, charges the government rejects.
Despite the criticism Meloni and Rama defend the agreement, insisting that it is of great interest to both countries. Albania is interested in external financing of the construction of the camps and adjacent infrastructure but even more in deepening the relations with Italy, as Rama recently said “Italy is Albania’s best advocacy in Brussels”.
Meloni have long demanded European countries share more of the migration burden, and have held up the Albania agreement as an innovative solution to a problem that has vexed the EU for years.
According to her the deal has attracted the interest of 15 out of 27 EU members who are asking the European Commission if “the union could follow the Italian model in the agreement with Albania”.
