Albania's Constitutional Court approves Italian migrant deal

"The agreement does not harm Albania’s territorial integrity," stated the Court on Monday in a press release, reported the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP).

The court had until a date in early March to decide but was expected to rule much sooner given the importance of the deal to both the Italian and Albanian governments. Last week, Italy’s lower house of parliament voted to back the protocol too. The text is now awaiting approval from the Italian Senate, but no obstacles are expected.

Under the terms of the agreement, Italy will build two centers in Albania. One at the port side in the northern harbor of Shengjin, to process those arriving on Italian ships, and one further inland which will be able to hold up to 3,000 people at a time.

Italy has estimated costs to be more than €650 million for the five-year agreement.

Aims to start building in spring

Once the Italian government has obtained full approval, they hope to start building at some point this spring.

The deal has been criticized heavily from various different quarters. Both the Italian and Albanian opposition parties have expressed disapproval. In Albania, the right-wing opposition party has said that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama hasn’t been transparent over the agreement. They call the deal "an irresponsible and dangerous act for national security," reported AFP.

The Italian opposition has also called for various amendments to the deal, but so far has not been able to get most of them through parliament.

International human rights organizations like Amnesty International are also unhappy with the deal. On January 22, the day the Italian parliament debated and ratified the legislation, they issued a press release calling on Italy’s lawmakers to "reject [the] agreement to detain people rescued at sea by Italian ships in Albania."

Amnesty International criticize deal

Amnesty said the deal was part of a "broader international trend to move border control and asylum processing to third countries: a move that threatens the human rights of migrants and refugees and could lead to greater suffering."

Matteo de Bellis, Migration and Asylum Researcher at Amnesty International, called the deal "shameful", saying it was "an attempt by Italy to circumvent international and EU law, with possible severe consequences for people seeking asylum."

De Bellis said the deal was "unworkable, harmful and unlawful," and would "see people in distress subjected to long and unnecessary transfers by sea and ending up in automatic and potentially prolonged detention, in violation of international law."

Fears for vulnerable people under scheme

The Amnesty researcher said he thought Italy should instead "ensure adequate reception in Italy," and offer "an effective asylum procedure, and safe, regular access routes."

Amnesty said that according to their research, the Italian proposal "may weaken the wider search and rescue system, which would likely jeopardize the safety of people in need of rescue at sea."

They said although the "application of Italian jurisdiction appears to promise access to procedural guarantees and asylum rights … in reality access to such guarantees could be severely hampered."

For instance, all those brought to Albania would be automatically detained. Amnesty points out that "automatic detention is inherently arbitrary and therefore illegal." They said they fear that because of recent changes to Italian law, "the agreement could lead to people being detained continuously for more than 18 months."

Amnesty also pointed out that "accessing legal aid and legal representation" to challenge the legality of one’s detention would also "inevitably be very difficult, adding to the risk of arbitrary detention."

Arrivals in Italy

Italian politicians have repeated several times that no one deemed vulnerable would be sent to Albania for processing. However, Amnesty worries that identifying all those who could be considered vulnerable might be difficult at sea, and therefore worry how vulnerable groups might be protected.

The Italian government hope this new scheme will help reduce the numbers of people willing to make the Mediterranean crossing. Over 158,000 arrived in 2023. According to Italian government figures, 1,863 migrants have arrived on Italian shores since the beginning of the year. Figures were last updated on the morning of January 30.

The numbers of arrivals so far this year are significantly fewer than the 4,959 people who arrived in the same period January 1-30 last year, and also in the same period in 2022 (3,035).