ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE to be transported from Italy to Albania today under a bilateral agreement between the two countries. 

The controversial five-year deal was signed last November by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

A naval ship departed from the island of Lampedusa today with 16 men – 10 from Bangladesh and six from Egypt – who were rescued at sea after departing from Libya.

The ship is expected to arrive tomorrow morning. 

Meloni’s far-right government formally opened the two centres in Albania last Friday, where Italy plans to process thousands of male asylum seekers.

“It is a new, courageous, unprecedented path, but one that perfectly reflects the European spirit and has everything it takes to be followed also with other non-EU nations,” Meloni said.

The centres can accommodate up to 400 people at first, a number that is expected to increase to 880 in a few weeks, according to Italian officials. 

The two centres will cost Italy 670 million euro over five years.

Under the agreement, women, children, older people and those who are ill or victims of torture will be accommodated in Italy and families will not be separated.

The deal was endorsed last year by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of “out-of-box thinking”, but human rights groups say it sets a dangerous precedent.

Taoiseach Simon Harris has said Ireland needs to “keep an open mind” about adopting a similar system. 

A spokesman for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), which has expressed serious concerns, said that one of its teams was conducting an “independent mission” on board the ship to monitor the screening process.

The UNHCR has agreed to supervise the first three months to help “safeguard the rights and dignity of those subject to it”.

The bilateral deal between Italy and the non-EU member Albania is the latest example of EU efforts to outsource asylum processing, something that has been done in other countries before, most notably Australia. 

Von der Leyen and Harris’ Euopean People’s Party manifesto ahead of the last European election endorsed the signing of deals similar to the one between Italy and Albania. 

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said today that the deal with Italy is exclusive but that his government has been approched by a number of other states seeking a similar arrangement. 

‘A stain on the Italian government’

Human rights organisations and charities that carry out search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean have condemned the deal since it was first tabled last year.

Last November, when the deal was announced, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), called it “a new attack on the right of asylum”.

Amnesty International has said the deal breaches international law.

On 31 July this year, Amnesty’s European office director Eve Geddie described the deal as “shameful” and said Italy had ignored the concerns raised by NGOs and other civil society organisations. 

“Not only is the plan incredibly harmful, it is also unlawful,” she said. 

“People in distress at sea will be subjected to long and unnecessary journeys, in patent violation of Italy’s obligation to ensure the swift disembarkation of rescued persons in a ‘place of safety’.

“On reaching dry land, they will face automatic, arbitrary and potentially prolonged detention in Albania. While under the terms of this agreement, people would remain under Italian jurisdiction, it is likely that their right to seek asylum and have their claims fairly assessed will be severely curtailed.

Geddie said the centres in Albania represent “the latest attempt by an EU country to circumvent their obligations under EU and international law by ‘externalising’ or shifting the processing of people’s protection claims outside of their territory”.

She warned that cases where similar projects have been tried by other states before have had disastrous impacts on people’s rights and wellbeing.

“This cruel experiment is a stain on the Italian government,” she said.

Under Meloni’s governance, Italy has introduced a number of laws and policies designed to divert or deter people from arriving in the country by boat, mostly from North Africa. 

One example is the regulation that forces rescue boats to travel to distant ports in the north of Italy after saving people at sea, meaning they are not allowed to dock in the nearest port of safety. Search and rescue NGOs have told The Journal before that this adds days onto each trip.

Another policy restricts boats from conducting more than one rescue per trip, meaning they are sometimes forced to ignore distress calls.

So far this year, 1,604 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.

With reporting from AFP and Press Association