On November 6, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that the country will build a center in Albania to receive illegal migrants arriving by sea.
 |
| Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (right) and his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama hope the new asylum center will help solve Europe's migration crisis. (Source: Getty Images) |
Speaking in Rome alongside his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, Prime Minister Meloni stressed that the agreement would help Europe better control the flow of migrants. Refugees will stay in these centers while their asylum applications are processed.
Italy will build a migrant identification facility at the Albanian port of Shëngjin and a repatriation center on the mainland, expected to accommodate around 3,000 people when they open in early 2024. The Italian government hopes the centers will be able to accommodate 36,000 migrants a year.
Meanwhile, Albanian Prime Minister Rama stressed that he felt obliged to help Rome due to the special relationship between the two countries, which are linked by geographical and historical proximity.
However, the decision was opposed by Italian political parties, with Green European Party spokesman Angelo Bonelli asserting that this policy violates international conventions and laws, because it is impossible to transfer refugees to a non-EU country without fully ensuring their basic rights.
Source
Comment (0)