Prime Minister Rama insists Albania migrant deal 'exclusive' to Italy as more countries eye scheme

Governments seeking to replicate the deal struck between Italy and Albania to outsource the processing of asylum claims should not look to the Balkan country for a partner, Albanian prime minister Edi Rama told Euronews.

"This is an exclusive agreement with Italy because we love everyone, but with Italy we have unconditional love," Rama said, speaking in the European Parliament on Thursday.

His repeated warning comes days after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said her British counterpart Keir Starmer had expressed "great interest" in the scheme, and as the offshoring of asylum procedures gains traction among EU capitals.

Albania is offering a pragmatic solution, Rama explained, denying also that the agreement was a quid pro quo for Italy's efforts to push the country along its EU accession path. Albania has been an official candidate to join the bloc for a decade.

"We decided to do this (migration deal) based on the feeling of responsibility as neighbours, as Europeans," he said. "For sure it is better than just fighting ideologically about this issue and doing nothing."

Under the five-year agreement struck between Tirana and Rome last November, migrants intercepted at sea by Italian authorities will be transferred to reception centres near the Albanian port of Shengjin, where their claims for international protection will be rapidly processed by Italian personnel.

Only migrants from countries deemed safe by Italy, and whose claims are therefore likely to be rejected, will be sent there.

Successful applicants will be granted asylum in Italy while non-eligible applicants will be detained and repatriated. The centres, built at Rome's expense and falling under Italian jurisdiction, are yet to open despite Italy's hard-right government originally intending to have them up and running by spring 2024.

Rome's stated goal is to process up to 36,000 applications per year in Albania.

Brussels has not objected to the deal, saying that it "falls outside" the realms of EU law. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has lauded the arrangement despite warnings from human rights defenders that migrants could face "lengthy detentions and other violations" and become trapped in a legal limbo.

In a letter to EU leaders, von der Leyen described the deal as an "example of out-of-the-box thinking" that can help countries get a grip on rising numbers of irregular arrivals. She has now tasked the new Commissioner-designate responsible for migration with "steering reflections on innovative operational solutions" to irregular migration, a euphemistic term often associated with the practice of outscouring.

EU countries eye scheme

Meloni's deal with Albania, part of her hard-right government's efforts to crack down on migration in Italy, has sparked curiosity in capitals within and beyond the bloc.

In a joint letter addressed to the Commission in May, 15 member states urged the bloc to "build on models like the Italy-Albania Protocol" as part of a joint push to partially outsource the EU's migration and asylum policy.

Migration has catapulted itself to the top of political priorities across EU countries in recent years, as mounting concerns over a steep uptick in irregular arrivals feeds into the political capital of previously marginal far-right parties.

Germany's migration commissioner, Joachim Stamp, who hails from the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), recently suggested that facilities funded by the previous Conservative UK government in Rwanda could be used as part of a European plan to house unauthorised migrants.

"We currently have no third country that has come forward, with the exception of Rwanda," Stamp said earlier this month in a podcast by Germany's Table Media.

The controversial UK-Rwanda deal, which crucially differs from the Italy-Albania deal in that the previous UK government was not willing to offer asylum in the UK to eligible applicants processed abroad, was scrapped by Keir Starmer's government in July.

But the newly-elected left-wing prime minister is interested in the Italy-Albania protocol. Starmer met Meloni in Rome last week as said he would "study" the deal as part of the UK's "pragmatic" approach to driving down irregular arrivals.