The Italy-Albania migrant deal seems set for failure. One Albanian town still wants it to succeed. 

When the tiny village of Gjadër in northwestern Albania got word that a migrant detention facility was to be built on a disused military airbase, plenty of locals were dismayed. 

Aleksander Preka, who runs a local shop and café in the village, said his neighbors were alarmed. They didn’t know what to expect — some even talked about “criminals” moving into the area, he recalled.  

Preka, who lived abroad in Greece for several years, said he tried to reassure them.

“I told them to talk to their children who have emigrated, and they will tell them there is no need to worry,” he said. “It will bring more diversity to the area.” 

Most of his neighbors, he said, came around to the idea that a new, multimillion-dollar facility could bring some much-needed business to the village, where the population has plummeted from 2,000 to around 700 in recent years. 

A year later though, the center sits empty while the larger Italy-Albania migration deal that led to its development looks increasingly uncertain. Human rights groups have called the proposal cruel and a possible breach of international law. The plan has been challenged in Italian courts. But Gjadër residents are still hopeful that the facility will become operational and help breathe new life into the village.

Preka said that initially, the center’s construction brought workers from across Albania, many of whom stayed in the village and ate in the local cafes. Local residents got jobs there too, he said, on wages that were much better than what they would normally make in the small town. 

But months into construction, villagers noticed that a 6-meter-tall steel fence was being erected around the facility. Word soon got out that it would be a closed camp. 

Locals were very upset, Preka said. It wasn’t just that the asylum-seekers wouldn’t be able to come into the village as expected, but it also made them think about how Albanians might be treated when they emigrate abroad.

 “Everyone who comes here is looking for a better life or for work, and we should accept them like anybody else, just like our children were accepted when they emigrated,” he said. 

Preka said he was disappointed to see the number of new visitors to the area falling as construction work at the camp was completed. 

On Sunday, it emerged that dozens of police officers and social workers deployed to the camp have since returned to Italy. Preka is still hoping the deal won’t fall apart. He said that for a while, the village felt reinvigorated.

If the asylum-seekers do eventually come, Preka said, “I hope they are allowed to integrate among us too.” 

Returned to Italy 

When Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni signed an agreement in November 2023 to screen asylum-seekers in Albania, she heralded it as a breakthrough for Europe’s migration challenge. 

The far-right leader rose to power on an anti-migrant ticket. Under the five-year plan, Italy would operate two migrant centers on territory belonging to Albania, a non-EU country, with the capacity to screen up to 3,000 people a month. The cost to the Italian government has been estimated at more than $830 million.

The International Rescue Committee has condemned the plan, saying that moving people to closed centers away from EU soil jeopardizes the basic human right to seek asylum. Amnesty International called it a “cruel experiment that is a stain on the Italian government.” 

In October, a small group of asylum-seekers rescued at sea by an Italian vessel off the coast of Italy were taken to the port of Shëngjin in northern Albania. 

Within days, a court in Rome ruled that the 12 men from Bangladesh and Egypt must be returned to Italy because their countries of origin were not considered safe enough for repatriation. 

Under Meloni’s agreement, migrants sent to Albania must be adult males traveling without family members, and come from countries deemed “safe.” 

A few weeks later, seven asylum-seekers brought to Albania were once again returned to Italy following a second court ruling, a decision that has been slammed by the Italian government. The Rome court has now referred the case to the European Court of Justice for its opinion.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy Prime Minister, said the ruling was “another political sentence, not against the government, but against Italians and their security.”

Meloni has vowed to fight the decision.

Edison Lika, a human rights activist in the Albanian capital of Tirana, said that he is relieved at the Rome ruling, but ultimately said that the men should never have been brought to Albania in the first place. 

Lika is among many in Albania who have questioned why the country’s Prime Minister Edi Rama signed the deal with Meloni. 

According to Lika, there is no real financial benefit to the Balkan country, but Rama may be trying to stay in the good books of EU leaders. 

A bid for EU membership

Over the past two years, several high-profile figures from Rama’s inner circle have been charged with corruption, notably in the case of the construction and operation of a waste incinerator in Tirana worth $100 million.

Journalist Besar Likmeta, with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Tirana, said the Italy-Albania migration deal brings zero benefit to Albania but it does serve Rama. 

“He wanted to be in Giorgia Meloni’s favor and make friends with other political leaders. Then, political leaders in Europe would turn a blind eye to his corruption. It’s very simple,” Likmeta explained.

Albania is currently in accession talks with the EU for membership to the bloc. 

Rama has said the country is hoping to join by 2030, but the state’s reputation for corruption remains a considerable stumbling block. Transparency International rates Albania 98 out of 180 countries on its corruption index. And, a US State department report in 2023 concluded that “corruption existed in all branches and levels of government” in Albania.

Government critics have said that Rama may be hoping his deal with Italy improves the country’s chances for EU membership. 

In December, EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen praised the plan, calling the agreement “out-of-the box thinking” by Albania and Italy.

The Albanian government said the deal was a “gesture of solidarity” with Italy. 

Since the 1990s, when the communist regime fell in Albania, thousands moved to live and work in Italy. Lawmaker Toni Gogu, a member of Rama’s Socialist Party, said Albania is simply returning the favor.

“We were the immigrants of the early 1990s, and the Italians opened their houses for us. We have a successful and long treaty of friendship with Italy,” he said. 

He said that Albania wants to provide whatever assistance it can to help Europe deal with its migration challenges. 

Lika said that if the Albanian government was truly concerned about Europe’s migration problem, it would start by helping its own people. 

“In the last 10 years, close to 500,000 Albanians have emigrated,” he said. “If Rama really wants to tackle migration, he should improve conditions in his own country so people don’t have to leave.”