Two Italian-run centres opened by
Italy last year in Albania don't need to become repatriation
centres (CPRs) because one already exists within a facility,
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Monday in Venice.
The migration centres in Albania "can't become CPRs because one
already exists inside a multipurpose facility", noted
Piantedosi.
"Therefore we only need to activate it as soon as possible given
the theme of recuperating places available in CPRs on the
national territory", added the interior minister, noting that
"this won't change its original function, which is
multipurpose".
Piantedosi also said that, "by the middle of next year at the
latest the new regulations of the migration pact" and therefore
"new European laws" will come into force.
"That centre will also maintain the other functions for which it
was originally intended", added the minister regarding the
fast-track processing of asylum rquests in a third country.
The implementation of a protocol between Rome and Tirana for the
fast-track processing of asylum seekers at the two facilities
has so far been stymied by Italy's courts.
The two centres of Shengjin and Gjader are currently empty after
Italian courts failed to validate the detention of the first
three groups of migrants taken there in October, November and
January.
Meanwhile in a note issued on Monday, the leader of the largest
opposition member, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) Elly
Schlein, said Piantedosi had sanctioned the death of the two
centres in Albania "which have cost Italians nearly one billion
euros"
The minister "certified the complete failure of the Albania
model", said the note, adding that Piantedosi and Premier
Giorgia Meloni should stop their plan as "current European
legislation does not allow to delocalize a repatriation centre
to a third country.
"Moreover, the protocol provides for only a small part of the
Albanian centres to be used as CPRs so the protocol with Albania
and the law should be revised in order to use them as CPRs",
said Schlein in the statement.
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