Italy’s hard-right government set to send sea migrants to Albania in bid to curb arrivals

Rome (CNN) — The Italian government is facing a new set of challenges as it prepares to open two migrant processing centers in Albania in October where men rescued at sea en route to Italy will be processed for asylum.

It’s a move which the hard-right administration says will combat human trafficking and allow in only those who have a genuine right to enter the European Union, but which has drawn scorn from human rights groups.

On Friday, the European Court of Justice ruled that the plan to offshore migrants from countries Italy deems “safe” but which the European Union does not, is not legal.

However, the court’s decision is non-binding and Italy and Albania are not prohibited by the ruling from going forward with the plans. The centers – one in the Albanian port city of Shengjin and the other further inland in Gjader – were supposed to open on May 1 after the two nations signed a bilateral agreement last November, but “unforeseen circumstances” including building delays and bureaucracy have repeatedly pushed back the opening.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said last month: “We will start in October. There’s definitely been a few months of delay, there were some normal checks, in which we discovered, for example, that the ground needed to be reinforced. That’s all, very normal variations during construction.”

A spokesperson for Piantedosi also confirmed to CNN that the centers are set to be inaugurated in October, but would not give an exact date. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been invited by the Italian government to monitor the centers once they are started, but it has also not been given a start date. Representatives who will monitor the centers are on alert to be on site when they open, a UNHCR spokesperson told CNN.

In August, the Italian government opened a trial detention center near Agrigento, Sicily, intended to mirror those in Albania by housing men from “safe” countries for fast repatriation. A court in Catania ruled the measure illegal under Italian law, but that ruling was overturned and two Tunisian men were deported without having their asylum requests processed on September 11, Piantedosi said in a post on X.

Seaborne migration on the central Mediterranean route, to Italy and Malta, is down by more than 60% on this time last year, according to Italy’s Interior Ministry and Europe’s Frontex agency. The decrease in the central Mediterranean has meant an increase in migrants trying to make it to Greece and Spain, according to Frontex statistics, and is largely due to clampdowns on NGO rescue ships and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s frequent trips to both Libya and Tunisia to apply pressure to keep migrants from leaving.

The drop in numbers notwithstanding, the Italian government is continuing to pursue an anti-immigration platform, which is widely supported by voters with Meloni enjoying a 44% approval rating, according to an Ipsos poll in September 2024.

Meloni’s so-called “Rome Process,” which she says aims to deter illegal migration and to tackle its root causes, has been of great interest to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who visited the Italian capital in September and pledged €4.75 million to the initiative, her office said.

“We talked about the Italy-Albania agreement, which is a solution that the British government is showing a lot of interest in, and clearly we have offered them all the elements to better understand this mechanism,” Meloni said during a press conference after the bilateral visit.

Meloni said Starmer had expressed interest in using the Albanian centers for migrants crossing the English Channel, but Albanian President Edi Rama told the European Parliament on September 19 that the centers were only open to Italy-bound migrants. “This is an exclusive agreement with Italy because we love everyone, but with Italy we have unconditional love,” Rama said.

Albania lies just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy but is not an EU member state.

In 2023, more than 157,000 people arrived illegally in Italy by boat from Libya and Tunisia, with hundreds known to have died trying, making the issue of sea migration one that all sides of the political spectrum agree must be better managed.

The asylum process is lengthy, meaning many would-be asylum seekers give up and slip into the periphery of Italian society or travel to countries in the north of Europe.

Amnesty International has called the Italy-Albania plan “shameful,” saying intercepted migrants will face a lengthier journey by sea to Albania, a potentially prolonged detention once there, and a likely curtailment of their right to seek asylum.

‘Don’t court the local women’

The centers will house up to 3,800 adult men at a time, who will be guided through the application process for requesting asylum in Italy, the Italian authorities say. If they do not qualify for asylum, they will be deported to “safe” countries, according to the agreement between Italy and Albania.

One of the 45 Italian male police guards sent to man the centers told CNN that they had been trained not only in how to deal with the incoming migrants and refugees, but how not to behave with the locals.

“We have been told not to be ‘too Italian,’” said the officer, who asked not to give his name since he is not authorized to speak for the unit. “We were given a handbook that outlines how to behave: no nudity, don’t court the local women, and drink coffee sitting down, not standing up at the counter.”

The handbook also describes Albanians as “modest people” and guides the incoming officers on how not to act “superior” to them. Flirting is a no-no. “Avoid courting Albanian women in various contexts and in an extemporaneous manner. It is a conservative society. The man who sees his woman being courted by another man can react badly,” the handbook also warns.

In all, Italy will provide 500 personnel, including police and military officers, health workers, and staff from the Justice Ministry, at an estimated cost of €252 million (about $278 million), according to Meloni. A local restaurateur in Shengjin has even opened the “Trattoria Meloni” to pay homage to the Italian prime minister for the investment in Albania, which has and will continue to benefit the local areas financially.

Additionally, Italy will pay €670 million (about $738 million) over the initial five-year contract for the centers’ operation and also pay for a second perimeter of security to be manned by Albanian guards to make sure none of the asylum seekers can escape. The cost comes to around 7.5% of what Italy currently spends on its migrant reception centers, Meloni said in June, speaking alongside Rama.

‘Clear risk’

The Shengjin port center will at first have just 880 places and is where all arrivals will be processed. Those who qualify to have their asylum claim heard will then move to the center in Gjader, which will open with 144 beds and then be expanded to hold 3,000 people while they await a response to their application from Italy. The complex also has a maximum-security 20-bed prison and emergency medical services.

The agreement states that only migrants from 22 nations considered by Rome to be “safe countries” will be sent to Albania, including men from Bangladesh, currently the fastest growing demographic arriving in Italy by sea, according to Italy’s Interior Ministry.

Other listed “safe countries” include Egypt, Tunisia and the Ivory Coast, citizens of which make up a large portion of arrivals. The European Court of Justice does not consider Tunisia and Egypt completely safe, which is at the crux of last week’s ruling.

Those who are from countries not deemed safe by Rome, such as Afghanistan and Syria, will initially be taken to Albania but later transferred to Italy for processing once their country of origin is confirmed.

The policy of “offshoring” asylum seekers has been heavily criticized by human rights groups.

“The agreement immediately laid the foundations for the violation of the principle of non-refoulement and for the implementation of illegitimate detention practices,” Gianfranco Schiavone, president of the Italy-based Association of Juridical Studies on Migration, told CNN, referring to the European Union’s regulations on treatment of migrants. Refoulement is the practice where asylum seekers or refugees are forcibly returned to a place where they would face persecution or danger.

“There is a clear risk that the operation intends to hide a strategy to create inaccessible reception centers, far from prying eyes and journalistic investigations, and from the nightmare of having to find a place for them in Italy, where no administrator, of any political stripe, can find them,” said Schiavone.

Piantedosi insists the opening of the Albanian centers is meant to act as a deterrent for migrants seeking to be smuggled into Italy. Meloni, who campaigned on a promise to “stop the boats,” has credited her government’s policies on investments in North African countries and punishing NGO migrant rescue vessels for this year’s decrease in arrival numbers.

The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration says that an increase in deaths of migrants at sea and a rise in migrant boats known to have departed from Libya and Tunisia going missing, presumed sunk, have also contributed to a drop in arrivals.

Questions over how to handle the many thousands of migrants who seek to enter Europe each year, often fleeing war, persecution and poverty and traveling in boats that are barely seaworthy, may be focused on border nations like Italy, Greece and Spain, but the ramifications extend beyond these frontline countries.

A group of 15 European countries, led by Denmark and including Italy, has petitioned the European Union to consider finding “new solutions,” like the Italy-Albania agreement, to help deal with irregular migration and “create a fairer, more humane, sustainable and efficient asylum system worldwide.”

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