Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (top center) speaks at the lower house of the Italian Parliament in Rome, Wednesday, January 24, 2024.
Roberto Monardo/AP
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Roberto Monardo/AP
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (top center) speaks at the lower house of the Italian Parliament in Rome, Wednesday, January 24, 2024.
Roberto Monardo/AP
ROME — Italy’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday approved a new government deal with Albania to house migrants while their asylum cases are processed. This is the cornerstone of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s efforts to share the burden of migration with European countries.
The proposal passed 155-115 in the House of Representatives, with two abstentions, and now goes to the Senate, where Meloni’s right-wing allies also have a comfortable majority.
Last November, Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced a breakthrough initiative in which Albania would shelter up to 36,000 migrants in two centers for a year and Italy would fast-track asylum applications. .
Italy has long called on European Union member states to show concrete solidarity to help deal with the tens of thousands of migrants arriving each year. Albania wants to join the bloc, and Italy strongly supports its participation.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen endorsed the agreement as an important initiative and a result of the “outside the box” thinking needed to address migration issues.
But human rights groups have expressed concern that Italy is outsourcing its international obligations, and Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic has warned that the deal deprives migrants of important human rights guarantees and prolongs their suffering. He said that there is a possibility that She said in her report that this amounted to “an ad hoc extraterritorial asylum system characterized by many legal ambiguities”.
Italy’s centre-left opposition parties have denounced the deal as an expensive propaganda move in the run-up to June’s European elections and a shameful attempt to turn Albania into Italy’s “Guantanamo”.
The agreement, approved on Wednesday, will cost Italy nearly 600 million euros over five years to build and staff a center in Albania and set up a remote testing process, according to the text of the agreement, which the opposition party argues that the funds should be used to strengthen Italy’s existing immigration. processing center.
Laura Boldrini, a former spokeswoman for Italy’s U.N. refugee agency and a Democratic lawmaker, said the deal was largely a public relations move by Meloni’s government to give Italian voters the impression that migrants were no longer coming to Italy. Stated.
In particular, she is working with Italy to determine who is considered “vulnerable” among migrants, including unaccompanied minors and pregnant women, as well as victims of human trafficking and rape. criticized the pre-screening that migrants undergo on board the ship. These people could be taken to Italy to have their asylum claims processed here, rather than remotely from Albanian centers.
“They say women who are trafficking victims or victims of rape or torture cannot be sent (to Albania) because it is not written anywhere,” Boldrini said. “But how do they judge and screen them? It’s not written on their faces.”
Augusta Montarulli, a lawmaker from Meloni’s Italian Brothers party, said all legal guarantees for asylum applications would be given to migrants on board the ship and then at any Albanian center available in Italy.
She defended the deal as an important part of the government’s overall immigration policy, which includes an agreement with Tunisia to promote legal immigration and broader development projects in Africa.
Even though only 36,000 migrants are sent to Albania each year, the deal will allow Italy’s immigration processing centers to screen asylum candidates better and faster without being overwhelmed. is worth the cost, she said. Nearly 160,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat last year, most starting from Tunisia or Libya.
“Albania has done nothing more or less than what European member states should do for Italy,” he said.
Albania’s Constitutional Court in December blocked ratification of the agreement pending a review of its constitutionality, but Prime Minister Rama said he was confident the court would not find any violations. The court this week postponed its next hearing to January 29 to consider further documents related to the case.