House, Albania bill approved. Tensions in the chamber, Schlein: “Meloni’s scam on Italians”

The House of Representatives gave the green light, amid tensions in the Chamber, to the Albania decree . There were 126 votes in favor, 80 against, and 1 abstention. The opposition voted against, while the majority was united in its yes. The measure now goes to the Senate for consideration.

The measure transforms the Gjader hotspot into a CPR to assign not only asylum seekers from safe countries, but also irregular migrants who are the recipients of an expulsion order. The vote came amid tensions in the Chamber between FdI and the minority forces. Minister Tommaso Foti defends the government's line: "It is becoming a model at an international level", he says. For the secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein , however, the decree is "a patch worse than the hole, placed on the skin of fragile people and on the pockets of Italians".

Tensions in the classroom

The protests from the opposition were sparked by the final part of the vote declaration speech by FdI MP Sara Kelany , the party's immigration officer, who spoke - referring to migrants destined for and hosted in CPRs - of "murderers, rapists, child pornographers" who "you - addressing the opposition - instead defend".

Words greeted by protests from minorities. "The left always places itself on the wrong side of history, we do not accept lessons from you", the FdI representative declared. The opposition reacts. And the tension rises.

The protests

"The government is quietly defrauding Italians". Elly Schlein does not mince words in Transatlantico in the Chamber after the approval of the Albanian decree. The secretary is with the PD deputies who for a year have been inspecting, almost every week, the Albanian centers. A project that, the Democrats underline, "has failed". And now Prime Minister Meloni, Schlein urges, "to cover up that failure is trying to make a change of intended use" of the centers in Albania with the decree passed today in Montecitorio, transforming them into CPRs. "They will no longer host people who are prevented from arriving in Italy, these centers will host people who were already detained in Italy. They bring migrants who are already in Italian CPRs to Albania and then bring them back to Italy to repatriate them. What is the point? - Schlein remarks - Only to fuel propaganda. Meloni does not want to admit that she has failed in what she promised in that video: ' They will work, even if I don't sleep at night ,' she said. I would have preferred the Prime Minister not to sleep at night on the waiting lists...".

All this with exorbitant costs, the Democrats still denounce. "On May 20th of a year ago, the centers in Albania were supposed to be operational. The government expected to host 36 thousand migrants: today there are less than 150. And according to their calculations - says Matteo Orfini - the centers cost 130 million a year. Even if we take the figure as true, this means that each migrant cost 1 million each to the State, to Italian citizens".

What does the Albania decree contain?

The Albania decree contains urgent provisions to combat irregular immigration. Specifically, the decree provides urgent provisions for the purpose of strengthening repatriation action: the provision extends the category of people who can be taken to facilities in Albania, the subject of the relevant Protocol of November 2023, to include those who are recipients of validated or extended detention orders. Before the new regulatory intervention, it was only possible to take to facilities in Albania people embarked on vessels of the Italian authorities outside the territorial sea of ​​the Republic or other Member States of the European Union, including following rescue operations. As a result of the amendment contained in the decree, it is expected that people who are recipients of validated or extended detention orders can also be taken to facilities in Albania. In fact, the decree equates the facilities built in Albania to the corresponding facilities provided for by national legislation. That is, they are equated to hotspots. Only the facilities intended for repatriation are equated to repatriation holding centers (CPR). Furthermore, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport is authorized to transfer two patrol boats free of charge to the Republic of Albania.

In the context of the procedure for the detention of the foreigner, the right to order the transfer of the same to another center is preserved, without the detention adopted being terminated and without a new validation being required. The failure to validate the detention measure against the applicant who submitted the application does not preclude the possible subsequent adoption of a detention measure, if the conditions are met. When this latter measure is adopted immediately or, in any case, no later than forty-eight hours after the communication of the failure to validate, the applicant remains in the center until the decision on the validation of the measure is made. The cases in which the accelerated procedure can be applied directly at the border or in transit zones are also modified.

Finally, the decree contains measures for the technical and logistical strengthening of repatriation detention centers: the power to derogate from any provision of law other than criminal law, for the location, construction, expansion and restoration of repatriation detention centers (CPR), is extended to 2026, without prejudice to compliance with the anti-mafia code and the mandatory constraints deriving from membership of the European Union.

Tomorrow Meloni in Tirana

Meanwhile, tomorrow in Tirana the summit of the European Political Community is scheduled, the format born with the Versailles summit in 2022 that brings together 47 countries, the EU members plus twenty non-EU countries but still in the European orbit: from Ukraine to Great Britain, from Turkey to the Western Balkans. The summit will be attended, among others, by the European leaders and the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The presence of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also expected.