ROME (Reuters) – Albania will hold no more than 3,000 migrants at any one time under a deal announced this week allowing Italy to build two migrant reception and detention camps there, official documents showed on Wednesday.
The Italo-Albanian scheme is the first example of a non-EU country accepting migrants on behalf of an EU nation, and is part of an bloc-wide drive to clamp down on irregular immigration.
The scheme has drawn criticism from Amnesty International and other rights groups.
“Parties agree that the total number of migrants present at the same time on Albanian territory cannot be more than 3,000,” an Italo-Albanian protocol states, according to a copy seen by Reuters and other media.
The figure compares with the more than 145,000 sea migrants who have arrived in Italy so far this year, a sharp increase from 2022 which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government is keen to contain.
Announcing the deal with Albania on Monday, Meloni said as many as 36,000 migrants per year could pass through the Albanian camps, but hitting this target depends on how quickly Italy can process asylum applications.
Meloni said the aim is to examine cases within 28 days, but experts have pointed out that, despite government efforts to streamline them, procedures remained engulfed in red tape.
Experts also noted that repatriating failed applicants is hard, given the lack of return deals with migrants’ home nations. In the year to date, Italy has repatriated just under 4,000 people.
The camps will operate under Italian jurisdiction, and should open in spring 2024. The protocol states that Italy will shield Albania from any costs from legal action against the initiative.
Italy is planning one facility at the Albanian port of Shëngjin for disembarkation and identification, and a second inland one for detention. They are due to be staffed by Italian personnel.
The facilities are more than 1,000 kilometres from Lampedusa, the island where most Italy-bound sea migrants currently land. Transferring them to Albania by sea would take at least two or three days.
Meloni said pregnant women, minors and other vulnerable people would not be sent to Albania, but it is not clear if this could result in adult men being separated from the rest of their families.
(Reporting by Alvise Armellini; editing by Christina Fincher)
