An Italian Navy vessel has deported to Albania a number of migrants who were first in the Mediterranean. These 16 people from Bangladesh and Egypt have been transferred to the “reception centres” built by the government of Giorgia Meloni in the Albanian city of Gjadër. It will deal with your “requests for protection” and will be expelled if a negative response is received from the court. They have been identified by the Italian authorities at the time of embarking, and the military has checked that they "comply with the requirements". According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, those arrested are the following: coming from "safe countries" and being "non-vulnerable men". As long as their petitions are processed, they must remain in the centre under the wall, without the right to be absent.

The “Reception Centre” is the result of an agreement signed in 2023 by Meloni and Edi Rada, as pointed out by Italy, “which serves to expedite migratory efforts”. The centre of Gjadër is an extraterrestrial area of Italy, so the Italian Law is in force in the centre. The France 24 medium has ensured that the project has been built with Italian money and that up to 2028 between EUR 600 and 700 million will be allocated. Italy shall also pay maintenance costs. Currently, it has the possibility to accommodate 400 migrants, as several cells are still being built due to delays in the construction process. Matteo Villa, a data expert and researcher at the Institute of International Political Studies, has stated that “it is four times more expensive than the existing centers in Italy” and “surely all migrants will end up moving there”.

The agreement between Meloni and Ram provoked many criticisms from human rights organisations, including the UN, and the Atlantic Alliance itself. The NGO SOS Humanity works in the Mediterranean with rescue boats and its spokesman, Mirka Schäfer, considers that “the Italy-Albania agreement not only infringes international maritime law, but risks further violating the fundamental rights of refugees. Italy’s de facto detention of asylum seekers on Albanian territory without judicial analysis is cruel because of the violation of fundamental rights in the country. These are refugees who have suffered violence, human trafficking or torture during their trip to Libya and Tunisia.”

For its part, Italian Democratic Party Secretary General Elly Schlein has accused the Meloni Government of “wasting” almost EUR 1 billion from public coffers in a programme that “disregards fundamental rights” and that “violates European jurisprudence”. “We could use these resources to shorten waiting lists or to hire doctors or nurses,” he said.

Albanian MEP Agron Shehaj added that the initiative also reflects the authoritarianism of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who “only wants his country to join the European Union”. “Before signing, we were not informed of this agreement, we heard it from the press. There was no debate either in the Basque Parliament,” he complained.

No public presentation of the centre has yet been made, and the Italian Foreign Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, says that no official act is foreseen. However, “there are no wires of thorns, only help,” and he has described them as “light retention centers.”

“A prison”

The medium France 24 has visited the center exclusively and has been described as a "Penitentiary Center". “At Gjadër’s premises there are only literas surrounded by gray walls. Behind the high barrier is a labyrinthine city consisting of dozens of modules in which the “hosteleros” are forced to live without stepping on the European soil”. The center is surrounded by a “high barrier of opaque and gray color,” and almost all of the facilities are metal. “You can’t see the horizon, nothing else, even if it’s located near the village. A military base for the First Cold War was hidden so that no one could see it. They have built the center in the same way, so no one can see it.”

There are rooms for asylum seekers and those waiting for an answer, areas for which they have received expulsion orders, video-call courtrooms from the Italian courts and a small prison for criminals.

Adron Shehaj has also described the center as a “prison”, “how to call it? Migrants cannot leave and no one will see what is happening inside them.” “This agreement is violating the human rights of these people. They have not decided to come to Albania, they are obliged," he stressed from the port of Schengjin.

Von der Leyen proposes Europe

The President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, has brought about changes in migration policies to 27 other countries.

The Von der Ley proposal, which follows Meloni's initiative, has been proposed by the committee in a ten-point letter. “That lessons can be drawn from the experience of the Italian and Albanian protocol,” he said. Von der Leyen has called on the European Heads of State and Government to “continue to explore innovative ways forward” in the field of migration, with the idea of setting up return centres outside the European Union.

The proposal has long been rejected by Brussels for “violating the rights of asylum seekers”. Home Affairs and Migration spokeswoman Annita Hipper has now explained that “until the resolution determines the final expulsion from the country of origin in order to expel migrants arriving in the EU, the obligation to return to a country other than their own should be regulated beforehand.”

Von der Leyen has announced that it will reformulate the definition of the term “safe third country” in order to move forward with the proposal. In his view, it is essential “to help those seeking asylum not to travel dangerous in the Mediterranean”.