Solidarity or advertising? Albanian immigrant for "France 24": They want to mask the incompetence of the Italian government

The agreement on refugees between Italy and Albania, signed on November 6, 2023 between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Edi Rama, was met with criticism and opposition.

The opposition in Albania and Italy, as well as international institutions, have described it as an agreement that violates the rights and freedoms of refugees.

A recent article of "France 24" , while referring to the agreement, brings to attention the mass exodus of Albanians with the ship "Vlora" in August 1991. Rama himself has stated that the reason for signing the agreement is the "solidarity" that Italy shared with the Albanian immigrants at that time.

But despite the fact that today in Italy Albanians are the second largest community in an EU member state, it does not mean that their integration has been as simple as "solidarity".

Hajri Kurti, who immigrated to Italy to escape poverty, says that integration was very difficult.

"You were an illegal immigrant, you had no rights, you worked illegally. Sometimes I wasn't paid ," the 50-year-old told AFP. "You had to be invisible. I was scared when I saw a policeman on the street. There is prejudice, there is racism in Italian society ," he said.

For the Albanian immigrant Kurti, the deal is little more than a "publicity scam" aimed at "masking the Italian government's inability" to manage migrant flows.

"Thousands of Albanians who arrived in March 1991 in the southern Italian port of Brindisi were warmly welcomed ," said Edmond Godo, head of the Albanian cultural association Besa.

The 57-year-old recalls how many locals left food for the newcomers outside their front doors, including one young woman who opened her home to him.

"She invited me and my two friends to lunch and after hearing the story of my country, she and her husband invited us to stay and sleep at their place ," he told AFP.

But another 20,000 or so Albanians who arrived in August of that year in Bari, a port north of Brindisi, were not so lucky.

Desperate migrants crammed into their boat, the Vlorë, were front-page news and the government feared more mass arrivals would follow. After being detained for several days in a city stadium, the vast majority of them were repatriated.

The Albanians had been told they were being sent to another Italian city, and their forced return instead was seen as a betrayal.

In 1997, Italy imposed a naval blockade on Albania and Italian navy ships patrolled its waters. In the same year, more than 80 Albanians died or went missing after an Albanian ship carrying more than 120 people collided with an Italian navy ship.

These are not memories where Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni or Rama want to stop, writes France 24.

Meloni, elected in 2022 on an anti-immigrant ticket, has pledged to reduce the number of migrant boats arriving in Italy and must be seen to address the issue, although these days the boats are no longer coming from Albania, but mostly from Africa of the North.

Rama asks Rome to help accelerate Albania's entry into the European Union.