Italy will open its centers for migrants in Albania within a week, the Italian agency ANSA wrote on Thursday. According to her, the Italian authorities have already taken over the campuses of both centers and are only waiting for their formal approval.
The launch of the centers to relieve the migration-burdened country has been repeatedly delayed and is many months behind schedule.
Italian authorities took over the center in Gjadër on Wednesday, whose construction had been severely delayed due to construction complications, according to the agency, citing its unofficial sources. Another center in Shëngjin was already ready. The center in Gjadër is now awaiting approval, which will take place within a week, according to the agency. Then both centers will be ready to start operating.
There will be a migrant identification facility in the port city of Shënjin. In Gjadër, a camp with roughly 1,000 places where migrants will stay until the Italian authorities decide on their asylum application.
The agreement with Albania, which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing cabinet signed with Tirana last November, is a key element of the Italian government’s policy, dominated by anti-immigration parties. On Thursday, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Italy’s approach differed from Britain’s plan to move asylum seekers to Rwanda. The centers will be under Italian jurisdiction, Italian police officers will patrol there, and Italian officials will decide on applications. According to Pinatedosi, other EU countries are also interested in the Italian project.
According to the original plans, the centers were supposed to start operating at the end of May, before the summer season, when a large number of migrants arrive in Italy from the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. However, the start of operations was repeatedly postponed.
The government believes that some of the migrants will be deterred from the journey by the possibility of being placed in Albania. However, in an interview with ČTK, the spokesman of the Italian office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Ungaro questioned this. According to him, the development of migration flows is influenced by a number of factors, and the migrants themselves, who are fleeing wars or poverty, have a great motivation to get to Europe.
The establishment of the centers in Albania is criticized by the Italian left-wing opposition and the Catholic Church in the country. Critics also point to high operating costs. According to estimates, the annual operating costs will be around 120 million euros (roughly three billion crowns). Among other things, the cost of the Italian staff of the centers is a big expense.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
