Thank you Prime Minister, good afternoon everyone.

It is a pleasure to be here and I am happy to have had this opportunity, to have had the opportunity together with Prime Minister Edi Rama to check the implementation status of the facilities provided for by the Memorandum of Understanding between Italy and Albania, which our governments signed seven months ago in order to strengthen cooperation on migration.

As Prime Minister Edi Rama made very clear in his statement, I would also like to say that Italy and Albania are long-standing allies; they are nations historically used to working and cooperating together. I wish to once again thank Prime Minister Rama and the entire Albanian population for offering Italy their help and entering into an agreement with us which I believe has a very European spirit.

Following on from what Prime Minister Rama just said, I also wish to once again express to him and all Albanian people my solidarity and closeness, as well as the closeness of the Italian Government and the Italian people, following the attacks they have undergone over the last months, since deciding to offer Italy their cooperation, also with this Government.
Over the last months, we have witnessed a very harsh smear campaign against the Albanian Government and the nation as a whole, which has even been depicted as some kind of narco-state controlled by organised crime. However, something in that narrative doesn’t add up because, as has been mentioned, this is not the first time Prime Minister Rama and Albania have offered Italy their collaboration, but in all previous cases Albania has quite rightfully always been conveyed as a nation showing a sincere desire to be part of the common European home, trying to find common solutions together with other countries and never failing to provide its support, especially to Italy.
I remember the last time this happened, the most recent time: during the most dramatic days of the Covid emergency, the Albanian government generously and bravely sent a group of 30 doctors and nurses to Lombardy, epicentre of the contagion.
On that occasion too, as in all previous cases, Prime Minister Rama was praised and thanked. The headline of one of Italy’s main newspapers at the time read “the beautiful tale of Premier Rama, receiving bipartisan praise from Italian politics”; that same newspaper now defines him as unscrupulous, as clearly many have changed their point of view since his Government decided to continue cooperating also with the new Italian Government, just as it had done with at least the five previous Italian governments (this is at least the extent to which I’ve been able to piece things together).

I do however wish to tell Prime Minister Rama, if it is any consolation, that he is actually not the target and that Italians understand and are grateful to the Albanian government and people for these additional, significant efforts to give us a hand in the name of friendship.

When I came here to Albania last summer and began discussing this agreement with Prime Minister Rama, we started from some basic considerations. The first, as Edi also mentioned, is that mass irregular immigration is a phenomenon that the European Union and EU Member States clearly cannot deal with alone. In this regard, we consider it crucial for EU Member States to cooperate with countries that are still not EU members (that we hope will be soon), and we believe it is important to all work together to boost and strengthen this cooperation.
So, Italy and Albania have worked together on this agreement which does precisely this, essentially setting three objectives: to combat human trafficking; to prevent irregular migration flows; to only take in those who genuinely have the right to be in Europe, who genuinely have the right to international protection.

As you know, through this agreement, Albania has given Italy the opportunity to use a number of state-owned areas (Shengjin, where we are now, and the area of Gjader, between Lezha and Scutari), where Italy is creating two centres to manage entry procedures and the temporary reception of immigrants picked up at sea. As I have said many times before, this is an extremely innovative agreement. As you may remember, when we signed it, I expressed my hope that it could become a model, and today we can proudly state that it is indeed becoming one; around fifteen of the twenty-seven EU Member States, so the majority of EU Member States, signed and sent an appeal to the European Commission a few weeks ago regarding migration, asking the EU, among other things, to follow the Italian model with reference to the agreement with Albania. Even Germany, which is also led by a socialist government, stated through the words of its Interior Minister that it was following this agreement with interest.

So, further encouraged by this attention we are also receiving from our international partners, we are here today, seven months after signing our agreement, to announce that the first centre, right here in Shengjin, is now ready. The centre we are standing in will carry out the work typically done by ‘centri di prima accoglienza’ [‘first reception centres’], i.e. the so-called ‘hotspots’, which we clearly also have in Italy; these centres are for migrants who are rescued at sea and brought to shore. So, to be clear, health screening, identification, recording finger prints and photographs and formalising applications for international protection are carried out here. As we have already said, only migrants who are rescued in international waters by Italian ships can be brought to the port of Shengjin, while vulnerable individuals, i.e. women, children, the elderly and other vulnerable people, will not be brought to Albania.
 
The other complex in Gjader, which is in the process of being completed, will instead have three purposes. At those facilities, fast-track border procedures will be carried out which, as you know, have to be completed within 28 days at the most. These procedures involve: a validation hearing; assessment of the international protection application by the Asylum Commission, which will be done remotely; decisions on any appeals. The fast-track procedure can be followed by migrants coming from so-called safe countries of origin; as you also know, the Government recently extended the list of these countries to now also include Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Egypt, Peru and Sri Lanka. This extended list makes it possible for a wider array of migrants to be brought to Albania instead of Italy.
With regard to fast-track border procedures, I also wish to recall that these procedures will become compulsory throughout the European Union under the new Pact on Migration and Asylum. I would also like to remind you that, as part of its revision of the multi-annual financial framework, the European Union has included specific funding to facilitate precisely these fast-track procedures, so the reality is rather different from the tales we have heard about the rule of law being violated and other such nonsense.
The Gjader complex will also act as a ‘C.P.R.’ [repatriation centre], meaning migrants who have been denied international protection, so who do not have the right to enter Italy and the rest of Europe, will be held in Gjader, where they will await repatriation. These facilities will also have a specific area for the detention of any migrants who commit crimes inside the centres.

These centres will be under Italian jurisdiction, the staff working inside them will be Italian and Italian police will be responsible for upholding law and order therein. The Albanian government will instead ensure cooperation with its police forces to ensure security and surveillance outside the facilities.

The combined structure made up of the two centres will be operational as of 1 August 2024. There have clearly been some people who have raised objections regarding the time frames, so also regarding the centres’ operations, alleging that there is a delay, and these people also include several opposition members of parliament, which is rather strange because first they accuse us of wanting to create a Guantanamo and then they complain about how long it’s taking to build that ‘Guantanamo’ (but, all in all, there’s also a lucid consistency in this too). The point is that we want to do things right, also because if what we have envisioned works here, and it will, then we will have broken new ground in managing the migration problem. This agreement could be replicated in many other countries, becoming part of the European Union’s structural solution. We understand this, as clearly supporters of uncontrolled migration do too (it is no coincidence that they are taking such a firm and fierce stance regarding this project). Many eyes are on us, and we want to succeed. For an objective like this, it is worth running two months late if needs be (considering also that the delay is above all due to the nature of Gjader’s terrain, which required reinforcement work we hadn’t planned for), and especially given that this problem has dragged on since 1991 and there haven’t been any truly effective solutions over the last decade.
This can finally be an effective solution with regard to the management of migrants who cross the sea to get to Europe, because then, on the other side, we also have the whole subject of agreements with countries in northern Africa.

To better understand the scope of what I am talking about, since 1 January 2024, more than 11,000 people have arrived to Italy from so-called ‘safe countries’. According to conservative estimates, imagining that at least half of those 11,000 people are vulnerable individuals, if the centres were already operational we would have been able to bring 5,500 migrants to Albania. With the current capacity, the centres would have been able to host all these people.

The company Medihospes Cooperativa Sociale has been appointed to run the services following a procedure negotiated by the Prefecture of Rome. Said company already manages several reception centres throughout Italy. Transportation will be handled by Italian government vessels – the Italian Navy, Port Authorities and Guardia di Finanza (Italian Finance Police). As of September, a ferry will also be chartered that can act as a floating ‘hotspot’. As you know, the Ministry of the Interior has published a call for expressions of interest in order award the relative service provision contract, at a cost of EUR 13.5 million. Chartering private vessels is a precautionary measure that clearly depends on the international situation and tensions in the Mediterranean and Red Sea, which mean it is not certain that we can count on navy ships for the period in question.

The last point regards costs, in relation to which a lot has also been written and talked about. In total, EUR 670 million in funding has been allocated over five years for the implementation of this Memorandum of Understanding, so EUR 134 million per year. EUR 134 million for the centres here in Albania corresponds to 7.5% of spending related to the reception of migrants on national territory. We firmly believe that these resources are not to be considered as an additional cost, for two reasons. The first is that the migrants brought here to Albania would nevertheless have had to be received in Italy, where, I would like to point out, they cost money. The second reason is that we believe the most useful element of this project is that it can represent an extraordinary deterrent for illegal migrants wanting to reach Italy and Europe, as well as of course being an effective means to fight human trafficking networks because, there, there are indeed human traffickers we are trying to combat. This also leads to a reduction in costs.
I would like to recall that, over the first five months of this year, there was almost a 60% drop in the flows of illegal migrants arriving by boat to Italy, meaning there has already been a reduction in costs. Thanks clearly to deterrents represented also by projects such as this one, we believe we can lower those costs even further, and so we are not spending additional resources, but rather making an investment.
That aside, if we do a quick calculation, with the current capacity of these centres when they are fully up and running, in Italy we will save EUR 136 million, considering the migrants who won’t be received in Italy. In other words, the cost of the migrants that can be received here amounts to EUR 136 million in Italy.

In closing I would like to say that we are very satisfied with the work we have done so far. I wish to thank all those who have made this possible, clearly starting with Prime Minister Rama and his Ministers. I wish to thank my Ministers, including Minister Piantedosi who is here today, Minister Tajani and Minister Crosetto in particular. I wish to thank the Army Engineers and all the State administrations involved who have made a decisive contribution. I wish to thank Ambassador Bucci, our ambassador in Tirana, who has followed the entire process step by step. My sincere thanks go to all the public security forces and to all those who have put their hearts and souls into implementing this initiative.

Before coming to an end I would also like to say once again that with this agreement Albania has confirmed that it is not only a friend of Italy’s (we are Albania’s largest trading partner, with our trade worth 20% of Albania’s GDP; there are intense cultural and social ties between our communities, as demonstrated by the fact that the Prime Minister speaks Italian almost better than I do), but is also a friend of Italy’s and of the European Union. The truth is that Albania already acts as if it were a European Union Member State, even though it isn’t formally, making choices that are perfectly in line with the principles of solidarity and cooperation that form the basis of the European family. It is no coincidence that Italy has always been among the greatest supporters of Albania’s entry into the European Union and, more generally speaking, one of the nations that has invested the most in relations with the Western Balkans.

I want to reiterate that I consider this agreement to have a very European spirit, and I am proud to have played a key role in this process together with Prime Minister Rama.

So, thanks again Edi, thank you, thanks to your Government and thanks to your people.

[Courtesy translation]