Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is a declared supporter of the Rwanda model, which is now being discussed in Germany. The idea behind it: to deter migrants from fleeing to Europe by offering them the prospect of being taken to a so-called third country outside Europe to process their asylum procedures. Meloni’s personal Rwanda was originally supposed to be Tunisia, but President Kais Saied said no despite friendly ties with the Italian. Doing the dirty work for Europe is unworthy of the Tunisian people. Now Meloni has found another solution: Albania, located on the other side of the Adriatic.
The Italian government wants to build two reception centers for migrants there and operate them under their own management. Meloni and Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama signed a corresponding declaration of intent in Rome. They laid the foundation for this at a holiday meeting in August. In the two camps, applications for admission should be examined within 28 days if possible and rapid returns to the countries of origin should be made possible. According to plans, the centers will go into operation in spring 2024 and would provide space for a total of almost 40,000 refugees per year.
Whether the agreement is compatible with European law will now be debated
It is a “historic turning point not only for Italy, but for the entire European Union,” said Giorgia Meloni. For the first time, a third country has agreed to help an EU country process asylum procedures. However, it is not a distant African country, but an EU candidate country that is on friendly terms with Italy. What exactly this supposedly historic pact means and whether it is compatible with European law will now be debated.
The regulation, it was said in Rome, does not apply to migrants who arrive on Italian coasts or in Italian waters. Rather, it is about people who are picked up by Italian ships in the central Mediterranean outside Italian waters. Minors, pregnant women and vulnerable people should be spared from traveling to Albania. According to the plans, the large remainder will be taken to the Albanian port of Shëngjin and from there to nearby Gjadër. Albanian officials were said to be helping to monitor the camps, but the operator was the Italian state. All international rules will be observed, assures Meloni.
The asylum law reform that is currently being negotiated between the EU institutions provides for fast-track asylum procedures in large camps at the EU’s external borders, which, however, means within the EU borders. The new rules should be adopted by the European elections in June 2024. However, with the Rwanda and now the Albania debate, the member states are questioning the intended EU legislative process even before it has been passed. On Tuesday, the EU Commission found it difficult to answer the legal questions surrounding the Italy-Albania deal. More details are needed, they said.
The EU Commissioner responsible for migration issues, Ylva Johansson, has said in the past that she considers the Rwanda model sought by Great Britain and Denmark to be “completely unrealistic” and a “crime against human rights”. She made it clear that she believes it is a violation of EU law and the Geneva Refugee Convention to send refugees who have arrived in Europe to Africa and to outsource the procedures there. Now it is important to clarify what the deal means with an EU accession candidate like Albania, especially if the procedures remain in the hands of an EU state. The big question that no one has been able to answer yet: Does Italy really want to grant full European asylum law to the people trafficked to Albania, even though, strictly speaking, they were picked up outside the EU borders?
The opposition in Rome predicted that an “Italian Guantanamo” would emerge in Albania. Giorgia Meloni herself, on the other hand, praised an unbureaucratic deal that would initially keep many migrants away from Italian soil. And the Albanian Prime Minister Rama should also benefit. The opposition in Albania criticizes him for bringing African migrants into the country. But Albania is receiving a lot of money and is also moving closer to the European Union. In any case, Rama now has a great advocate in Meloni when it comes to joining the EU. “Albania is proving its full European maturity not only with words but also with deeds,” Meloni said on Tuesday. Albania is far ahead of the usual pace of EU bureaucracy.