Italy has formally opened two centres in Albania where it plans to hold men who are intercepted in international waters while trying to cross from Africa to Europe.
The Italian ambassador to Albania, Fabrizio Bucci, said the centres were ready to accommodate people while their asylum applications were processed, but could not say when the first ones would arrive. “As of today, the two centres are ready and operational,” Bucci told journalists at the port of Shëngjin on Albania’s Adriatic coast where the people picked up will land.
Under the terms of a controversial deal that has been criticised by human rights groups but tacitly endorsed by the EU, up to 3,000 men a month will be taken to the centres while their asylum requests are processed in Italy. Children, women and vulnerable individuals will still be taken to Italy.
The agreement was signed last November by the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama. Meloni said at the time that in exchange for Rami’s backing for the centres she would do everything in her power to support Albania’s accession to the EU.
Meloni, who once said Italy should repatriate people and then “sink the boats that rescued them”, has argued that the plan is necessary to reduce arrivals by sea.
“The most useful element of this project is that it can represent an extraordinary tool of deterrence for illegal migrants destined to reach Europe,” Meloni said in June, adding that “the agreement could be replicated in many countries and become part of the EU’s structural solution” to the migration crisis.
The two centres in Albania have cost Italy €670m (£564m). They are being run by Italy and are under Italian jurisdiction. Albanian guards will provide external security.
One centre has been established in Shëngjin, about 45 miles (75km) north of the capital, Tirana. The other is about 15 miles south of Shëngjin near a former military airport in Gjadër.
Meloni has said officials will try to process asylum requests within 28 days, much quicker than the months it currently takes in Italy.
Albania will only process the applications of people from countries designated as safe by Italy, a list that has recently expanded from 15 nations to 21. The updated list includes Bangladesh, Egypt, Ivory Coast and Tunisia among others. In the previous year, 56,588 people from those countries made their way to Italy.
The vast majority of requests are expected to be rejected, because the countries the applicants come from are considered safe, which automatically limits the scope for asylum to be granted. Those whose requests are turned down will be detained before their eventual repatriation.
Anyone whose request is accepted will be taken to Italy.
Meloni and her rightwing allies have long demanded that European countries share more of the migration burden.
Aid workers have strongly criticised the agreement, saying they fear the centres will rapidly fill with people waiting to be returned home.
Médecins Sans Frontières has said the deal goes “one step beyond” previous agreements between EU countries and non-member states, such as Turkey, Libya and Tunisia. “The aim is no longer to only discourage departures, but to actively prevent people from fleeing and those rescued at sea from gaining safe and rapid access to European territory,” MSF said in a statement.
Riccardo Magi, the president of the leftwing More Europe party, said: “They are creating a sort of Italian Guantánamo, outside of any international standard, outside of the EU, without the possibility of monitoring the detention status of the people locked up in these centres. Italy cannot transport people saved at sea to a non-EU country as if they were packages or goods.”
On 14 August, the UN refugee agency, which has expressed serious concerns about the deal, agreed to monitor the first three months of the agreement operating.
The UNHCR said it was not a party to the agreement and maintained reservations about it, requesting clarification about how the deal would be implemented. However, the agency said it had agreed to be a monitor to help “safeguard the rights and dignity of those subject to it”.
Some Albanians have said the deal is a way to thank Italy for taking in thousands of people fleeing poverty in Albania after the fall of communism in 1991.
The Council of Europe commissioner for human rights said the agreement could set a dangerous precedent. “The shifting of responsibility across borders by some states also incentivises others to do the same, which risks creating a domino effect that could undermine the European and global system of international protection,” it said.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
