Albanian Justice suspends the controversial migration agreement with Italy

First modification: 12/15/2023 – 02:10

4 min

Giorgia Meloni's signature immigration measure may never take concrete form. The Constitutional Court of Albania suspended on Wednesday, December 13, the migration agreement signed last month by the Prime Minister of the Balkan country, Edi Rama, and his Italian counterpart.

The migration agreement provided for the establishment of two reception centers, identification and control of migrants rescued in Italian waters. A way for Italy to transfer migrants who arrive first in its national territory to a neighboring country, and thus externalize its migration policy.

The Albanian Parliament was supposed to ratify the migration pact on Thursday, December 14, but had to suspend the process after the Constitutional Court agreed to review the constitutionality of the agreement, following a petition presented by 30 opposition legislators last week.

“The panel of judges that has met has considered that the appeals presented met the required criteria and has decided to examine them in plenary session. This means that the parliamentary procedures for ratification of the agreement are automatically suspended,” declared the president of the Albanian Constitutional Court, Holta Zaçaj.

Two centers administered by Italy, but installed in Albanian territory

The opposition congressmen who signed the lawsuit denounced the loss of sovereignty in the places where the reception centers were to be built. They had complained about procedural errors during the negotiation and signing of the agreement, which, according to them, had to be authorized by the Albanian president as stipulated in the country's Constitution, since it affects the territory and fundamental rights.

The two migrant reception centers were to have a maximum capacity of 3,000 people per month, that is, about 36,000 people per year. According to the agreement, one center would be in the port city of Shengjin, and another in the former Albanian Army air base of Gjadri. The agreement had been signed for a period of five years, with the possibility of renewing it.

The objective is for asylum applications to be processed in these two centers and for those who are going to be denied that status to be repatriated from there, which would reduce the number of immigrants in Italian territory.

Italy was to bear the cost of the project, as well as the additional costs of the Albanian police to ensure security outside the perimeter of the reception centres. As for the migrants housed in these centers, they would not be able to leave until their applications are examined, with a theoretical process of 28 days maximum.

Now, the Constitutional Court has until March 6, 2024 to make a final decision on the constitutionality, or not, of the immigration agreement.

Some 146,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year

For its part, the Albanian Government rejected the opposition's accusations and defended the agreement agreed with Italy. “The Albanian Government has the right to negotiate this type of agreement on behalf of the Republic of Albania,” declared Albanian Interior Minister Taulant Balla, ensuring that the text was “fully in line with the Constitution.”

“We are not selling Albanian land. “We are offering this land to Italy, as we usually do, for example, when we set up an embassy,” added the Minister of the Interior, arguing that, if the jurisdiction within the reception centers will be Italian, the land as such will remain Albanian.

Despite strong criticism from the Italian opposition, the House of Representatives of the Italian Parliament had already approved the measure.

The head of the Italian Government Giorgia Meloni was elected with the speech of ending illegal immigration, but she has difficulty fulfilling that promise. Italian reception centers, particularly those on the island of Lampedusa, located about 145 kilometers from the African coast, are overflowing. In total, around 146,000 people have arrived so far this year, well above the 90,000 who arrived in the same period in 2022 and the 55,000 in 2021, according to data from the Italian Ministry of the Interior.

European countries seek to externalize their migration policies

The pact signed between Italy and Albania is reminiscent of one reached between the United Kingdom and Rwanda. The measure was declared illegal by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, a rejection that Rishi Sunak's Government is trying to overcome with the approval of a new deportation law.

Although Albania does not belong to the European Union or the Schengen area, the European Commission viewed the agreement between Italy and Albania positively. In a letter sent to the heads of State and Government, the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had assured that the arrangement “serves as an example of innovative thinking, based on a fair distribution of responsibilities with third countries in accordance with the obligations derived from international and EU law.”

A position that divides the European continent: for her part, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mitjatovic, criticized the consequences of the agreement and expressed her concern about what she considers to be a European tendency to outsource the management of the asylum.

With Reuters, AFP and local media