The controversial agreement between Italy and Albania to create centers to deport immigrants to the Balkan country has already reached Europe. In an interview with Il Messaggero, the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, said yesterday that she hopes that this pact, the first of its kind in the community, can become a "model of collaboration between countries of the EU and non-EU countries at the forefront of migration management", despite the fact that both the opposition and humanitarian groups see it as dangerous, an attack on the right to asylum and a fact that could contradict international legislation.
Meloni claims that they reported the agreement with Tirana to the European Commission (EC) "without this entailing any level of criticism", but other information points towards a certain surprise.
As La Stampa published, the affair has irritated the EC because Rome would not have informed them of the agreement until hours before making it public. Yesterday the spokeswoman for the Interior of the European Commission, Anitta Hipper, confirmed that they were informed of the pact before announcing it, but advanced that before making an assessment, Brussels needs "detailed" information. "We are in contact with the Italian authorities because we need to see the details and we requested to receive detailed information about this type of arrangement", indicated the community spokeswoman.
What is known, for now, is that the agreement foresees the construction of two centers in Albania with Italian jurisdiction. It is expected that from the spring they will be able to accommodate up to 3,000 people, around 36,000 a year, to manage asylum requests or eventual repatriations. In the port of Shengjin (in the north of the country) there will be a structure for disembarkation and identification procedures, and about twenty kilometers inland, in Gjader, a center for permanence and repatriation will be created.
Italy will cover the construction costs, but both sides have denied that there could be any further financial compensation for Tirana. Of course, there will be Albanian agents outside the premises.
Migrants rescued only by Italian ships, i.e. those intercepted by Coast Guard patrol boats and other state bodies, will be transferred to these centers, while the ships of humanitarian organizations will continue to disembark in Italy. The measure also does not include immigrants who arrive autonomously on Italian shores - usually on the island of Lampedusa - or minors, pregnant women and other vulnerable people who need immediate assistance.
This agreement, which means de facto outsourcing migration management to a country outside the European Union, is very reminiscent of the agreement reached by the United Kingdom with Rwanda, a plan that from the beginning was in the spotlight of justice and which was declared illegal in the first instance by a British appeals court, which considered that there was a "real risk" that those sent to the African country would be returned to their countries of origin and end up suffering "persecution or inhumane treatment". The community spokeswoman pointed out that, according to the initial information, the pact between Italy and Albania "seems different from the agreement between Great Britain and Rwanda", but she recalled that immigrants rescued in the territorial waters of an EU country European legislation must be applied to them, while international law concerns those rescued outside these waters. "There are different ways in which both the EU and the member states can cooperate with countries outside the EU in the management of migration, but fully respecting international UN law," warned Hipper.
The agreement, as they explain, began to develop during a visit that Meloni made in August to Albania and which was presented as part of his family vacation. The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, defends that they do not expect anything in return, but Meloni has already become the main champion of Albania's entry into the EU, because "she is behaving as if she were, given that makes decisions in line with the principles of solidarity and cooperation".
