The Albanian Government has published the full text of the agreement between Tirana and Rome on the management of migratory flows , consisting of 14 articles and two annexes.
The first annex concerns the areas intended for the construction of the structures in which migrants will be hosted: the conditions for recognizing international protection will be verified, anyone who does not have the right to enter and stay in Italian territory must be repatriated. But Rome must take care of the repatriation, and if it fails to implement it, the migrant still returns to Italy, which will retain jurisdiction over the centers . All costs of construction and management of the structures, the transfer of migrants, the provision of health services will be "totally borne by the Italian side".
The second annex is on the «regulation of reimbursements from the Italian side to the Albanian side»: among other things, it provides that within 90 days of the entry into force of the agreement Rome will credit Tirana 16.5 million euros «for the first year of implementation of the protocol" . Again within 90 days, Italy must set up a guarantee fund with a bank operating in Albania.
On the basis of the protocol, which lasts for five years with the possibility of renewing it for another 5, in Albania there will be only one reception center with 3 thousand places and a place of first arrival where the migrants - explained Prime Minister Edi Rama - will be hosted "in dignified conditions" until transferred to the only available centre .
There is also talk, among other things, of Rome's support for Albania's entry into the EU. But Edi Rama denies it: «We do it because Italy has been close to us since 1989, when we were in deep water, when we were on the edge of the precipice they brought us incredible help. When the earthquake occurred, the Italian firefighters sacrificed their lives for us. It is a shore of the same sea, a country where Albanians feel at home, not only when they travel for work but also for tourism."
The Albanian prime minister also spoke about the management of migrants in the EU: «We cannot understand why, in the face of wars everywhere, we cannot have a normal dialogue to understand how we resolve this thing. There are European states that are closed, that don't want people of another color or religion, that have welcomed millions of Ukrainians because they are white and Christian, and others, like Sweden, that have welcomed everyone and now has public order problems. We must find a European way to regularize the flows while respecting the right of all human beings to be saved by rejecting criminals. These are issues that cannot be resolved through political warfare."
For Interior Minister Piantedosi, the agreement reached by the Italian Government is "innovative". «I understand – he states – that innovative things often spark discussions , but you will see that everything will come together according to a logic that we have announced some time ago and on which we are working».
(Unioneonline/L)