Why Albania snubbed Starmer over asylum seekers

Telegraph

15-05-2025

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.