How it is that such a burden comes to Albania’s poor shores will be an outstanding mystery loaded with doubt and resentment.
The absurd and dystopian reality of migration detention centres are the topic of an interesting and haunting Netflix series called ‘Stateless’ which explores the cruelties of the migration management system in Australia. The despair of the people who reside there, waiting endlessly for the system to yield a response and often caught up in situation where they can neither go forward nor go back, is enough to cause the viewer repetitive nightmares. Relevant decision-makers had better set some time aside and indeed watch Stateless. They might learn a thing or two.
Now it seems that the latest agreement between Italy and Albania, a surprise development for all involved except the core cabinet of the two respective Prime Ministers, is set to establish on Albania’s northern coast two centres for the processing of migrants that await on their asylum requests. These centers are expected to accommodate around 36000 people annually though these are just estimates.
Very little is clear on the legal framework that regulates this agreement. The serious Italian press (i.e La Reppublica) has posed many questions whether this deal is based on the principle of extra-territoriality which goes against international conventions and a good part of the EU laws. There are deep and serious inconsistencies of who gets to come and what happens to them while they are in Albania. These legal gaps and inconsistencies are pointed out with vehement opposition by both Italian and European stakeholders in several media outlets since the news was made public.
Italy may have signed to pay the bill but ultimately the responsibility of managing the security and social implications of thousands of people who will be processed in Albania rests with the Albanian side. Since no discussion and no consultation with political or institutional stakeholders was made public before there are virtually no guarantees that this has been thought through and planned for. There is a serious question mark whether this agreement has been cleared with strategic partners such as NATO.
Moreover, this raises other more theoretical questions about the issue of migration, a crucible of pain and a force that feed extreme right all over the world.
Australia, a rich country part of G12, is actually in the same boat with the rest of the West when it comes to the difficulties of managing migration flows. The European Union has had fierce debates and large levels of discontent when it comes to the legal and practical arrangements that regulate migration and that have caused an unfair extra burden on countries such as Italy, Greece and Malta. In the meantime, the Mediterranean Sea has become heavy with the lost and drowned and heavy with the shame burden upon a Union which primes itself on democratic values.
How it is that such a burden comes to Albania’s poor shores will be an outstanding mystery loaded with doubt and resentment.
Some of this resentment is present on social networks where people are questioning how one single individual can open the doors of the country for such a major deal without consulting anyone first. Albanians are not xenophobic on the contrary. They have traditionally been travelers and migrants and all have family abroad. Their concerns are genuine and not loaded with racism. They reflect the situation that the country finds itself in. Thousands of young people leave the country every year depleting the workforce, exacerbating brain drain and dimming every title light of perspective for the future.
At a minimum, this sort of deal requires open and careful discussion over all the implications with all political and social stakeholders as well as a measuring of public pulse which will play a role. Ideally, this would need to be very surgically examined if it fits with Albania’s strategic goals and agreed development and integration pathways.
All these have been forgone in favor of a hasty and dramatic deal which has left most in Italy, Albania and Brussels simply out of words.
