Has Italy's migrant deal with Albania completely failed?

Everything has returned to normal in the village of Gjadër and the port city of Shëngjin in northwestern Albania.

Almost exactly one year from the day the parliament ratified the country's migrant center agreement with Italy, not a single migrant is in any of the facilities built in Gjadra and Shëngjin, writes Deutsche Welle .

The agreement signed by Italy and Albania in November 2023 and ratified by the Albanian parliament on February 22, 2024, provided for Italy to build migrant detention centers in Albania that would house up to 36,000 irregular migrants per year, while their asylum requests would be examined by Italy.

A series of obstacles for the Italian government

Since then, over 70 migrants – mainly from Africa and South Asia – have been transferred to Albania in three different groups.

The first ship, which had 16 migrants on board, was sent to Albania on October 16. All of them were returned to Italy after a court in Rome ruled that the transfer was illegal and that repatriating them to their countries of origin could violate international legal protections.

Two more transfers of migrants followed: A group of eight people was sent to Albania on November 8 and another group of 49 people on January 28.

In both cases, the Rome Court of Appeal ruled that the migrants could not be held in Albania until the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg decides whether the asylum seekers' countries of origin are considered safe for repatriation.

The European Court of Justice is expected to rule on this matter on February 25.

Observers have left Albania

Meanwhile, Italian officials and NGO experts monitoring the situation in Albania have already left the country "until further notice."

Francesco Ferri, a migration expert at ActionAid, has been part of a delegation monitoring conditions in Albanian centers since their creation.

"The delegation from Tavolo Asilo e Immigrazione [a national alliance of NGOs and civil society organizations that aims to protect the rights of migrants in Italy] has carried out monitoring missions in Albania to observe the facilities set up and the context in which they operate," he told DW. "We are currently no longer in Albania, but we continue to closely monitor the situation from a distance and are ready to return for further monitoring activities."