BIRN: Italy-Albania migrant deal tests respect for rule of law

For a few months, life in Gjadra was different. In the northwestern Albanian village, near the Adriatic Sea, a camp was built to house migrants, and Italian staff sent to work there rented houses from villagers, some of whom also found work.

The fact that the camp in question and another like it in nearby Shëngjin are at the center of a European court dispute over human rights was of no consequence to the village headman Aleksandër Preka, 65.

Italy's plan to process asylum claims from migrants while they were held in a camp in his village, just a short flight or boat ride from Italy, represented an opportunity for Gjadri, the site of an air base that had been abandoned for decades until it was recently restored.

Then it all ended. Italian courts intervened and the first migrants who arrived on October 16 were turned back. When a second group returned in November, the Italian staff members also left.

“Initially, the Italians lived in rented houses here in the village, which brought a big change in village life,” Preka said. “Around 15 houses were rented out by the locals and now none are rented out, except for one that was paid off until February.”

“The camp is not closed,” he said, but 70 percent of its workforce has been laid off. “Most of the Italian workers, police officers, have left,” Preka told BIRN. No one knows if they will return.

However, the impact will be felt far beyond Gjadri, as politicians in Europe assess how far they can stretch the rule of law when it comes to the rights of refugees and migrants.

“There is a lot of political noise, politicians saying 'Oh, this is the future, this is the way forward,'” said Catherine Woollard, president of the European Council for Refugees and Migrants.

“But the real lessons they are learning are that, in fact, it is very difficult to succeed and that if they try, they will have to deal with the judicial system.”

According to a November 2023 agreement reached between the prime ministers of Albania and Italy, Edi Rama and Giorgia Meloni, the two camps were built last year to house and process asylum seekers intercepted by the Italian navy in the Mediterranean.

Human rights groups were outraged, but some of Italy's EU counterparts took notice, seeing the plan as a potentially powerful obstacle to those trying to reach the bloc.

According to reports, the camps would cost Italy one billion euros over five years, but so far the scheme has been a disaster.

A few days after arriving in October, the first 16 migrants were returned to Italy following a ruling by the Rome Court.

A second ship was sent to Albania in November, but again Italian courts ordered the migrants to be returned to Italy.

At the heart of both decisions is the question of what constitutes a “safe” country of origin, arising from a ruling by the European Court of Justice, ECJ, which ruled on October 4 that a country of origin cannot be considered “safe” if even parts of it are not safe.

For a person’s application for asylum or international protection in Italy to be processed in Albania, their country of origin must be considered “safe.” Under EU rules, such a ban cannot apply to “vulnerable applicants,” which includes those from “unsafe” countries.

In response, Meloni's right-wing government passed a decree on October 23 updating the list of countries that Italy considers "safe."

This was followed by another challenge at the ECJ in the case of a Bangladeshi citizen, which raised the question of whether a country can be considered “safe” “even if it is not safe for all its citizens (e.g. LGBTQ+ people, political dissidents, etc.)”. The decision is expected in March.

"For the moment, everything here has stopped," said a villager from Gjadri, who asked not to be named.

"There is no information about what will happen. Some women who worked there no longer go to work. Only a few of them still work there."

Some locals said they were told to wait for the Italians to return in early spring. Meanwhile, 76-year-old Simon Gjini said he had no problem with the asylum seekers' stay.

“I have eight nephews and nieces in Verona,” he said, alluding to the waves of emigration that have emptied many parts of rural Albania. “It’s very quiet here. Nothing bad will happen if we keep the immigrants.”

Will the European Court's decision be respected?

Meloni's government has not surrendered.

In Italy, the case has now moved from the specialized immigration section of the Rome Court to the appeals court, where judges are not specialized in migration matters and the government hopes it can reach a more favorable decision.

"The appeal courts in Italy have not worked on migration cases since 2017, so I think the government hopes - and they may be right - that since they are not trained, they can easily comply with the indications given by the justice ministry or the interior ministry," said migration expert Luca Cricenti.

Woollard said the upcoming ECJ ruling in Luxembourg will most likely repeat what she said on October 4.

“Their views on these issues are quite clear,” WoolLard told BIRN. “The issue will be whether the Court of Justice will be respected.”

“I think that’s the long-term question: is the erosion of the rule of law going to the point of a growing lack of respect for Luxembourg court decisions?”/ BIRN