Civil Rights Defenders concerned as Italy sends asylum seekers to Albania 

Two reception centres are currently being built in Albania and are expected to be completed soon. This is part of an agreement made between Italy and Albania in November 2023. The agreement allows Italy to send asylum seekers to Albania, where their asylum applications will be processed. Civil Rights Defenders expresses concern over the agreement and similar so-called “externalisation methods,” as they risk undermining the right to asylum and make it more difficult for people who have fled to receive a fair asylum process. 

The agreement was signed in November last year between Albania’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama, and Italy’s far-right Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. According to the agreement, Italy will build two reception centres in Albania that can process up to 36,000 asylum applications per year. Individuals who are in Italy undocumented, as well as those apprehended during search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, may be detained in one of the two Albanian centres. 

Only people from certain countries are included in the agreement. Currently, this involves 21 countries, such as Ivory Coast and Tunisia. Dividing asylum seekers based on their nationality, however, risks leading to discrimination and increases the risk of arbitrariness in the asylum process, as it limits the ability to consider individuals’ specific asylum claims, such as sexual orientation. 

A new era for migration policy 

The agreement is an example of so-called externalisation, where asylum seekers and asylum processes are transferred from EU territory to a third country. Other European countries have been exploring similar solutions, and the UK recently abandoned its plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. 

Civil Rights Defenders is concerned that the agreement undermines the right to asylum, leads to unlawful detentions, and risks making it more difficult to ensure accountability for errors in the asylum process. We also believe that there is a risk that those who have their asylum applications processed in Albania will be treated worse than those whose applications are processed in Italy. 

The agreement threatens the right to asylum, as set out in Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The right to seek asylum includes, among other things, the right to access the territory and to remain there while one’s asylum application is processed. 

– It is a worrying trend that we are seeing in Europe. EU countries are simply paying to avoid protecting asylum rights. That is not a responsible way of handling this. We hope that Sweden does not follow the same path, says Martin Nyman, senior legal advisor at Civil Rights Defenders.  

Review of the EU Migration Pact 

Civil Rights Defenders continues to monitor EU and Swedish migration policy, particularly as the EU’s asylum and migration pact will be implemented in all EU countries over the next two years. 

Read our article on how Sweden should carry out the migration pact here.

Protecting the right to asylum  

Using the law as a tool, we work to improve legal protection for people fleeing persecution and to ensure that their fundamental rights and freedoms are respected both in Sweden and across Europe. We are able to do this thanks to funding from the Swedish Postcode Lottery.