The implementation of the controversial migration agreement between Albania and Italy seems to take longer than expected. The Albanian Constitutional Court announced yesterday the suspension of parliamentary procedures for the approval of the agreement, signed at the beginning of November between the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, which provided for the construction of two centers in Albania with Italian jurisdiction.
The Court has thus responded to the two appeals filed by around thirty parliamentarians opposing the Albanian Government, who maintained that the pact violates the country's Constitution and the international conventions of which it is a part. And therefore, until there is a ruling – it has three months to pronounce – the parliamentary ratification of the agreement, which was to be held this Thursday, remains frozen.
Meloni has strongly defended this agreement, criticized by humanitarian groups, which provided that these centers could accommodate some 36,000 people a year to manage asylum requests or eventual repatriations. Italy is responsible for the construction costs, around 60 million euros, but both parties have denied that there will be more financing for Albania, although there will be Albanian agents outside the venues.
In the port of Shëngjin (in the north of the country) a structure will be built for disembarkation and identification procedures, while about twenty kilometers inland, in Gjäder, a permanence and repatriation center will be created. Migrants rescued only by Italian ships in non-European waters will be transferred to them, that is, those intercepted by coast guard patrol vessels and other state bodies, while the ships of humanitarian organizations will continue to disembark in Italy. The measure also does not include immigrants who arrive independently on the Italian coast – normally, to the island of Lampedusa – nor minors, pregnant women and other vulnerable people who require immediate assistance.
Given the many questions about the respect of Italian and Community laws in this agreement, the European Commission considers that the agreement does not violate European law because it is “outside of it.” This Wednesday the president of the Community Executive, Ursula Von Der Leyen, defined it as an “example of innovative thinking, based on a fair distribution of responsibilities with third countries in accordance with the obligations derived from international and EU law.”
The terms of the pact are very reminiscent of that reached by the United Kingdom with Rwanda, a plan declared illegal by the British Constitutional Court. Three weeks after the rejection of the project, London and Kigali have signed a new document to revive the suspended one and expel immigrants who arrive in the United Kingdom irregularly to Rwanda. The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, defended in Parliament that the agreement between Rome and Tirana cannot be compared with the pact reached between the United Kingdom and Rwanda to deport migrants to the African country. In response to criticism, Tajani stated that it has nothing to do with it because "there is no outsourcing to a third country of the management of asylum requests" and migrants "will be treated according to European and Italian standards." Italy thought it would be launching this spring, but for now it will have to wait.
