Agreement on illegal immigrants between the government of Albania and Italy and some financial concerns

The financial agreement that inevitably comes as part of the international agreement between the government of Albania and the government of Italy for an immigrant processing center in Gjadër reflects the costs that may be imposed on Albania through the changes that this partnership will create in legal precedent and in local costs for the institutions involved for implementation.

Although there is no text with the full content of this Agreement, from the data published by media sources [1], at first glance all the costs for the transfer, the structures that will be built for the accommodation and the daily functioning of the immigrants illegals who will be sheltered in Lezha belong to the Italian government.

Dealing with migration is important and is not a cost-free option. In this sense, the Albanian government should not be satisfied with just considering this agreement as the right thing to do, without giving much necessary clarifications.

One of the topics for clarification is the discussion of financial costs.

Thus, according to this point of view and in the absence of an analytical report from the government, our experts see that in some points of this draft agreement for emergency cases, as well as for cases related to security (monitoring and supervision), various services for livelihood, health, as well as the cost of engaging public resources (financial and human) in case of breaking the security elements are understood to be costs of the Albanian budget.

No money was requested from the Albanian government for this Agreement and in this case, the agreements if they do not include the element of profit are considered as agreements that do not have the proper transparency, since each eye also has the details of the cost of each party. The losers are the citizens, who are not informed about all the details related to their taxes. So, with the obligations and benefits along with long-term consequences that can come as secondary effects from the lack of transparency.

This moment is related to the argument that for many such moments of interaction in the framework of this Agreement, the Albanian government lacks experience and has not calculated in the details that are described in the points of the draft agreement, all the elements of the costs of services. Otherwise, if the costs of services, for time, materials and human resources that will be made available are analyzed and calculated in function of the points of the draft agreement, they should be included as its Annex and as a legal obligation for transparency for taxpayers.

However, pending the decision of the Constitutional Court on January 29, 2024, we think that these concerns should also be raised as part of the case in the trial.

[1] https://www.oranews.tv/politike/dokumenti-i-plot-qeveria-zbardh-marreveshjen-rama-meloni-per-refugjatet-i1119655