Albania – CounterVortex

Meloni maneuvers to save offshore migrant camp plan

CounterVortex — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 18:10:58 +0000

Italy’s right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, issued a decree Oct. 21 aimed at bypassing judicial obstacles to a controversial deal with Albania to hold and process the claims of asylum-seekers intercepted at sea by Italian forces. The move comes three days after a special immigration court in Rome ruled that the first group of 12 migrants sent to the repurposed military camp at Gjader, Albania, must be returned to Italy. The court found that the migrants’ countries of origin—Egypt and Bangladesh—are “unsafe,” making their offshore detention illegal. Meloni’s decree asserts the executive alone has the power to make such determinations, setting the stage for a showdown between her government and the judiciary. (Politico, DW, BBC News, EuroNews, Jurist, CBC )

Photo: Melting Pot Europa

Italy in deal to hold asylum-seekers in Albania

CounterVortex — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 17:56:45 +0000

Italy and Albania on Nov. 6 announced an agreement that would see asylum-seekers intercepted at sea by Italian forces taken to Albania while their claims are processed. Italy is to pay for construction of two centers in Albania with the capacity to hold up to 3,000 migrants at a time. If Italy rejects the asylum bids, Albania would deport the migrants. Albania is also to provide external security for the two centers, which would be under Italian jurisdiction. Children and pregnant women would be excluded from the plan. Some experts question whether the plan is legal, and say it follows a worrying trend of European countries seeking to “externalize” migrant processing to other countries. (TNH, AP)

Photo: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons

EU doubles down on asylum double standards

TNH — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 22:51:21 +0000

More than 1.1 million refugees and asylum seekers have entered Germany this year—outpacing the 890,000 that arrived during the Mediterranean migration crisis in 2015. Back then, the vast majority were Syrians. This year, around one million of those who have entered are Ukrainians, although Syrians, Afghans, and others continue to arrive. For Ukrainians, the EU Commission this week extended the Temporary Protection Directive—first activated in March, and allowing them to live, work, and access services throughout the EU. Some 4.2 million Ukrainians have registered under the directive, which is now valid until March 2024. Meanwhile, the EU is pursuing much less welcoming policies for asylum seekers and migrants from other parts of the world. These include the the Dublin Regulation, that since 2003 has required asylum seekers to apply for protection in the member state they first entered—often prolonging perilous journeys to reach sanctuary beyond countries with harsh immigration policies, such as Poland and Hungary.

Member states are now urgently trying to curb an uptick in arrivals along the Western Balkans route (through Albania and Serbia). And, in the latest push to try to externalize asylum processing, Spain, Greece, Italy, and Malta plan on floating a proposal to have the EU border agency Frontex set up asylum processing centers in countries outside the EU.

However, a recently leaked report from the EU’s anti-corruption watchdog OLAF paints a damning picture of the agency’s disregard for fundamental rights. The report, which prompted Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri to resign, revealed that the agency has been covering up violence against asylum seekers by the Greek coast guard in the Aegean sea.

From The New Humanitarian, Oct. 14

Photo: Sara Creta/TNH

Kosovo adopts laws allowing formation of army

Jurist — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 18:19:57 +0000

The Parliament of Kosovo approved a package of bills on Dec. 14 that will allow Kosovo to form a military and defense ministry. All three bills—one establishing a Defense Ministry, one that converts the limited Kosovo Security Forces (KSF) into a professional army, and another that regulates service in the forces—garnered convincing majority votes in Kosovo’s 120-seat legislature, with 101, 98 and 96 yes-votes respectively. Notably absent for the vote, however, were the Parliament’s ethnic Serb MPs.

The Government of Kosovo’s decision to pursue the formation of its army through the legislative process rather than through constitutional amendment was strategic. Because an amendment would require not only a two-thirds majority vote in the Parliament but also the the approval of two-thirds of the 20 seats held by non-Albanian MPs, ten of which are held by ethnic Serbs, a constitutional amendment would have been unattainable.

Serbia will seek an urgent session of the UN Security Council over Kosovo’s decision to form an army. It holds that the adoption of these laws amounts to a violation of the Kosovar Constitution (PDF), written and adopted by the Provisional Self-Governing Institutions in Pristina and UN Security Council Resolution 1244 that brought the conflict in Kosovo to an end in 1999. According to Serbia, the only armed force allowed in Kosovo is the NATO-led Kosovo Force, tasked with peacekeeping in accordance with Resolution 1244.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed concerns over Kosovo’s expansion of its security forces, deeming it untimely but ultimately “a question that Kosovo decides.”

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj after the vote told reporters that the army of Kosovo will always be in favor of peace and never used against citizens of Kosovo, whether in the north or south. (Kosovo’s north is majority-Serb, and south majority-Albanian.)

The laws will provide the legal framework for the transformation of the KSF into a full state military over the next 10 years.

From Jurist, Dec. 14. Used with permission.

Note: The KSF was built on the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), which was formally disbanded after the end of the conflict in 1999. Ramush Haradinaj is a former KLA commander who faced war crimes charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia over his role in the war in the 1990s. He was acquitted in 2012. Russia has joined Serbia in demanding an emergency Security Council session over Kosovo’s move. Senior officials in Albania have meanwhile praised Kosovo’s decision. (IBNA, IBNA)

Photo of Kosovo Security Forces via Balkan Insight