Italy’s refugee camp in Albania: formally no prisons

The EU’s first extraterritorial refugee accommodation is due to open in a few weeks: an Italian refugee camp on Albanian soil. Human rights activists are worried.

On November 6th, to much applause and in a warm atmosphere, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart Edi Rama signed an agreement: Refugees who are picked up by the Italian coast guard in international waters and have little prospect of asylum will be brought to Albania in the future become. Italy is building a reception center there with space for around 3,000 people who will go into the Italian asylum procedure from Albania and who will be deported immediately after a rejection. Meloni had promised during the election campaign to reduce the number of arrivals and to return rejected asylum seekers more quickly. She hasn’t succeeded so far. The agreement with Albania is intended to change that – but many questions remain unanswered.

Many unanswered questions

For example, how much the whole thing is costing Italy: Italian media are talking about 650 million euros over the next five years, the opposition is talking about up to a billion euros. There is no official number. The planned approach is also difficult to understand: the coast guard should continue to bring people with good prospects of staying or those who are sick to Italy. But how is the Coast Guard supposed to determine health status or identity on the high seas? As a rule, refugees do not have any papers with them, and even healthy people are exhausted after days in small boats at sea.

It is also questionable whether all human rights-relevant standards are adhered to in the facility on Albanian soil. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) criticizes the fact that the protocol of the Meloni-Rama deal does not address constitutional standards. There are already major concerns about Italian deportation facilities. The so-called CPR, abbreviation for “Centri di Permanenza per il Rimpatrio”, in German: stay centers for repatriation, are a black box.

Hardly any legal standards for CPR operations

Teresa Florio volunteers for refugees in the deportation camp in Milan. She shows us videos that are said to come from the deportation facility there. You can see excesses of violence, residents being tranquilized with psychotropic drugs, and suicide attempts. Anyone caught in Italy without valid documents can be held in such CPR for up to 18 months. Self-harm is commonplace. Because they are the only way to escape the conditions, explains Florio.

The CPR are not formally prisons, and that is exactly the problem, says the activist: certain legal and medical standards apply in prisons. The CPR, on the other hand, are privately run institutions on behalf of the state with significantly lower standards and only sporadic controls. Contact between deportation candidates and a lawyer is usually only possible by telephone or video link and is limited in time. Visits from outside are almost impossible: Florio says that fundamental rights are repeatedly violated in the deportation facilities. She fears that the conditions in the facility in Albania will be even more dramatic, as there will be even less control by civil society.

Even for journalists it is hardly possible to understand what conditions exist in deportation camps in Italy today. Inquiries from the ARD remained unanswered, interviews were canceled and filming permits were categorically rejected. The responsibilities are unclear, including with regard to the planned camp in Albania. And in Albania itself, hardly any details about the plans are known – nor is it how the country will benefit from the deal.

Albania thinks of Italy’s help in 1991

Albania’s long-term Prime Minister Edi Rama speaks fluent Italian. At a private meeting, he and Meloni are said to have agreed the deal in a cordial atmosphere – based on an old friendship between the two countries. The country also expects support when joining the EU. There is no money to be made with the Italian camp, emphasizes Rama. Italy must bear the ongoing costs and pay 37 million euros into a kind of blocked account if agreements are not adhered to. Otherwise, the Italian officials employed at the property are subject to Italian jurisdiction.

Many Albanians seem to share Rama’s view and see the agreement positively. The close cooperation with Italy brings back memories of 1991, when thousands fled to Italy and were taken in there. The images of the overcrowded freighter “Vlora” went around the world.

But the closer you get to the location of the planned camp, the more often you come across critics. About half an hour from the coastal town of Shengjin is the former military site in the hilly hinterland, which is now being made available to the Italians. Construction vehicles work, shielded by a high fence. Elton Laska, an Albanian lawyer, tries to get a glimpse of the area through the fence. He tried to prevent the Italian camp from entering the Italian camp – unsuccessfully.

He sees the migration center as a huge prison and fears that there will be great unrest and attempts to break out there. However, it is unlikely that the warehouse will open on May 20th as announced. Construction has not progressed far enough for this.

You can see these and other reports today at 6:30 p.m. in “Weltspiegel”.