Why Albania snubbed Starmer over asylum seekers
Sir Keir Starmer was embarrassed by Albania's refusal to host Britain's failed asylum seekers, but the rebuff should have been foreseen.
Edi Rama, Albania's prime minister, has made it clear that he has eyes for just one foreign leader when it comes to 'return hubs' for migrants on Albanian soil: Italy's Giorgia Meloni.
'We have been asked by several countries if we are open to it and we said no because we are loyal to the marriage with Italy,' Mr Rama, a 6ft 7in former professional basketball player, said at a joint press conference with Sir Keir in Tirana.
There are two key reasons for this. One looks to the future while the other is rooted in the past.
Firstly, Albania calculates that by accommodating the Meloni government's desire to outsource its migrant problem, it gains a powerful ally in its campaign to be made a member of the European Union.
Mr Rama, who was re-elected for an unprecedented fourth term this week, says he wants his country to be admitted by 2030 and having the Italians onside could be a big help.
Italy was one of the founding members of what was originally the EEC and is the bloc's third-biggest economy after Germany and France.
Since her election in 2022, Ms Meloni has shown herself to be a leading figure in Europe, a wily politician who can navigate the corridors of power in Brussels while still courting the likes of Donald Trump and Viktor Orban.
Albania is also showing the rest of Europe that is willing to help the 27-nation bloc with one of its most intractable problems of recent years.
Britain after Brexit holds no sway in such admission decisions. Even if there were financial incentives from the UK, joining the EU would probably be more valuable for Albania, and a deal with Sir Keir's Government could upset that process.
The second reason for Albania's preferential treatment of Italy is historical.
When communism collapsed in Albania in the early 1990s, tens of thousands of Albanians fled across the Adriatic to Italy, many of them in rust-stained ships.
Mr Rama has repeatedly said that Albania owes a debt of gratitude to Italy for taking in so many Albanian migrants, who still make up a large diaspora.
'I have been very clear since day one when we started this process with Italy that this was a one-off with Italy because of our very close relation but also because of the geographical situation, which makes a lot of sense,' he said at the press conference with Sir Keir.
Ermal Pacaj, a centre-Left mayor in northern Albania, where the Italians built their two centres, told The Telegraph during a visit: 'It's a way for Albania to repay Italy for welcoming and integrating our people.'
There is, perhaps, a crumb of comfort for the British Prime Minister.
Albania might have given preferential treatment to the Italians but that does not mean the migrant processing plan worked. In fact, opposition parties have decried it as an astronomically expensive fiasco, saying that so far it has cost around a €1 billion (£840 million).
The original aim of the accord, which was drawn up in 2023, was simple: Italian navy and coast guard vessels would intercept migrant boats in the Mediterranean and instead of allowing them to land on Italian soil, transfer them to Albania.
There they would be received in a small facility in the port of Shëngjin, before being taken by bus about 15 miles inland to a second, much larger facility, constructed on a disused Cold War military airfield.
Those whose applications were turned down – expected to be the vast majority – would be repatriated to their home countries.
The aim was to process as many as 3,000 migrants a month.
That, at least, was the theory. In practice, the entire project has been blocked by the courts.
Italian judges have ruled that migrants can only be sent back to their home countries if those countries are deemed to be safe in their entirety.
They based their decision on a ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice in October.
All of which has meant that the scheme has so far been a debacle. The handful of Bangladeshi and African migrants who have been taken by ship to Albania have eventually been brought back to Italy, by order of the courts.
'Giorgia Meloni's Albania project has officially failed,' said Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister and the leader of the centre-Left Italia Viva party.
Deeply frustrated by the courts' challenges, Ms Meloni and her ministers have vowed not to give up on the Albania plan.
'We are convinced that we are right and so we are moving forward,' Antonio Tajani, foreign minister and deputy prime minister, said earlier this year.
Italy may have a special relationship with Albania but as far as the migrant processing plan goes, it has yet to bear much fruit.
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The Kingdom reportedly wants Opec and its allies to continue to add at least 411,000 barrels a day of output in August and potentially September. Also weighing on prices is Donald Trump's trade war, which has hammered the price of crude amid fears it will hurt economic growth and dampen demand. Ireland's economy grew by almost 10pc in the first three months of the year as international companies ramped up exports ahead of Donald Trump's trade war. The Irish central statistics office revised its figures from a previous estimate of 3.2pc to 9.7pc because of a surge in exports. However, it's important to stress that big multinational tech and pharma companies have an outsized presence in Ireland, and the GDP figure captures some of their non-Irish activity. This means economists trying to gauge the state of Ireland's economy look to an alternative measure called modified domestic demand, which increased 0.8pc in the first quarter. US President Donald Trump's trade war could raise enough tariff revenue to offset the cost of his tax-cutting 'Big, Beautiful Bill', the Congress's independent budget watchdog has said. The Congressional Budget Office said Mr Trump's tariffs would reduce the US budget deficit by $2.8tn (£2.1tn) over the next decade. This would outweigh the CBO's estimate this week of a $2.4tn deficit hit from the president's proposed tax cuts. The CBO's finding, in a letter to Democratic Party Congress leaders, could change the fiscal equation in the US – assuming that all the tariffs stay in place. Worries are mounting over whether the US will be able to afford the sweeping tax cuts proposed in Mr Trump's bill. The CBO said tariff revenue would be $2.5tn, once exports and imports adjusted in response to the levies. The government would then have to borrow less to fund the deficit, saving another $500bn. But the tariffs would 'reduce the size of the US economy' as other countries retaliated, which would shave $200bn off the $3tn total gain. That left a final boost to the budget bottom line of $2.8tn. The CBO also estimated that the tariffs would push up inflation by an annual average of 0.4 percentage points in 2025 and 2026, 'reducing the purchasing power of households and businesses'. The CBO's calculation was based on Mr Trump's near-universal tariff of 10pc; the tariffs on China of 30pc; the automotive, steel and aluminium tariffs of 25pc; and the 25pc levies on some imports from Canada and Mexico. British and European markets edged upwards on Thursday morning ahead of a decision from the European Central Bank (ECB) on whether it will lower interest rates across the bloc. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.43pc at 10:45, as was Paris's Cac 40. The German Dax was up 0.45pc. It comes as the ECB is expected to deliver its eighth consecutive cut to interest rates amid falling inflation in the eurozone in the afternoon. The FTSE 100 rose more slowly on Thursday, gaining 0.19pc by mid-morning. The business secretary has said Britons did not just vote to be 'neighbours' with the EU when they chose to leave the bloc. In a speech at the Brussels Economic Security Forum, he said: 'Whilst the British people did vote to leave the European Union, they did not vote for division in our defence. 'They did not vote for bureaucracy to block our brilliant businesses in the UK and the EU from trading widely in goods and services. And they did not vote for young people to lose the wealth of opportunities that travel brings.' He added: 'It's said that good fences make good neighbours. The UK and Europe should not be. They cannot be, and they are not just neighbours. 'We're friends, and your success is our success, and vice versa. Our bonds are born by shared values and shared ideas. However, he warned that 'one of the harsh lessons of the early 21st century' was that those ideals cannot be taken for granted. It comes after Sir Keir Starmer agreed a deal with the EU last month that was heralded as a 'reset' of relations post-Brexit. Mr Reynolds said: 'The deals we've made, I hope, go a long way to show that the UK seeks to be one of the best-positioned markets in the world, and at a time of real challenge, you can depend on the UK for stability, for openness and for a pro-growth, pro-business, pro-investment environment.' The European Union is optimistic about striking a trade deal with the US despite Donald Trump's threat to impose 50pc tariffs on the bloc. Maroš Šefčovič, the European Union's trade commissioner, said he was an 'eternal optimist' when asked about trade negotiations with the US. How Musk turned on Trump's tax 'abomination' | The president's fiscal profligacy is driving his chainsaw-wielding ally to breaking point Bill for switching off wind farms hits £500m | Lack of grid capacity raises costs as turbines are ordered to shut down Winter fuel U-turn to punish pensioners in the South | Means-testing risks penalising 'asset-rich, income-poor' retirees, pensions minister warned British Army supplier founded by Tony Blair's son raises $20m | Skyral secures funding to develop simulation technology for military Jeremy Warner: Enough is enough. Let Thames Water go bust | Rising bills and deteriorating water standards have made Thames a symbol of national failure On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2pc, to 42,427.74, the S&P 500 finished flat, at 5,970.81, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3pc, to 19,460.49. In the bond market, the yield on benchmark 10-year US Treasury notes fell to 4.36pc, from 4.46pc late on Tuesday. Asian shares edged higher while the dollar dipped ahead of an expected cut to European interest rates on Thursday.
