Italy: Senate gives final approval to Albania asylum deal reform

Rome: Italy’s Senate on May 20 gave final approval to the so-called Albania decree after the Lower House’s green light on May 15. The measure allows for Italy’s centers in Albania to be used as repatriation centers.

The Italian Senate on May 20 confirmed its confidence in the government and approved the Albania decree with 90 votes in favor, 56 against, and one abstention. The measure voted into law allows the use of the facilities opened by Italy in Albania last October for the fast-track processing of asylum seekers, turning in particular Gjader, formerly a multipurpose facility, into a repatriation center (CPR).

The legislation had obtained a first green light from the Lower House on May 15, also including a vote of confidence.

The Senate voted in confidence requested by the government on the Albania decree, approving it in record time amid the opposition’s protests and the pride expressed by ruling coalition members. The measure contains “urgent legislation to fight irregular migration” and implements the protocol on migrants signed by Italy and Albania.

It turns the Italian-run hotspot in Gjader into a hosting and repatriation centre (CPR) where migrants who are detained in Italy ahead of their expulsion can be transferred.

The measure, which was modified in the House, will allow to overcome a stalemate after the Albanian centers had remained mostly empty because Italian judges had repeatedly failed to validate the detention there of asylum seekers on the grounds that their countries of origin could not be considered safe based on a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling.

The first three groups of migrants taken to Albania prior to the government’s decree in March had to be transferred back to Italy following the courts’ orders.

Under the new legislation, if judicial authorities fail to validate the detention of migrants in Albania, the measure can be reiterated within 48 hours.

After the Lower House’s green light last Friday, the Senate’s Constitutional Affairs Committee on May 20 started examining the draft text at around midday until 3 pm, without voting on the amendments.

The government had called a vote of confidence in the Senate over the measure as it had been changed and approved by the Lower House on May 15. The request was presented in the Upper House by the Minister for Relations with Parliament, Luca Ciriani.

The decree will now be converted into law by May 27.

As recalled by Interior Undersecretary Nicola Molteni of the League party, “the Albania decree is a virtuous model which has been taken as reference by many European countries.”

Molteni went on to say that the executive was awaiting a sentence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over referrals presented by various Italian courts that had failed to validate the detention of migrants at the Italian-run centres in Albania on the subject of the designation of countries of safe origin.

The ECJ had ruled on October 4 last year that a country is not safe if just a part of its territory is found to be unsafe. The cabinet has since passed a measure setting a list of 19 safe countries in order to overcome the legal hurdle to the agreement between Rome and Tirana being applied, saying courts need to rule based on the decree rather than on the ECJ sentence.

“We are awaiting the sentence of the European court of Justice, which I am convinced will go in the direction of validating the detention and the definition of a list of safe countries”, he said, recalling that Italy currently has 10 CPRs with “1,398 places on paper”.