According to an article published by the Italian daily La Repubblica, migrant centers in Albania, established as part of the agreement between Italy and Albania, are operating far below initial expectations.
Reported data show that the number of migrants accommodated has been minimal during the first year of operation, in stark contrast to official projections. The project, which envisaged a capacity of thousands of people per month and a total budget of 653 million euros over five years, is facing implementation problems and high costs per person accommodated.
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On August 22, only nine people remained in the migrant center in Albania. Ten days earlier, there were seventeen. Throughout the summer, the average number never exceeded twenty, and in total, just over a hundred migrants have been sheltered there in a year. Meanwhile, according to the original plan, 3,000 people were expected to be sheltered per month, a huge gap that has led to the project being described as a costly failure.
The center, inaugurated on October 14, 2024, has become a “cathedral in the desert,” a large but almost always empty structure. Of the 880 planned places, only 400 are functional, while the planned prison has never opened. Meanwhile, contingents of police and prison agents continue to patrol an uninhabited space.
Despite repeated statements by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that "the centers in Albania will function," the situation is expected to remain unchanged at least until next summer, when the new EU Pact on Asylum and Migration could enter into force, a development that has not yet received consensus from member states.
According to the Italy-Albania protocol documents and government planning, 653 million euros have been foreseen for the operation of the two centers (in Gjadra and Shëngjin) over five years. This includes the construction of the centers, the contract with the operator Medihospes, the costs of police missions and the high costs of transport by ship and plane from Italy to Albania and vice versa. This translates into over 130 million euros per year.
Considering that only 111 migrants have passed through these centers as of July 25, the cost per person is astronomical at over one million euros. This is the price that, according to a report by Altraeconomia, Italian taxpayers have paid for a project that the Court of Justice of the EU has ruled cannot be used to stop asylum seekers from safe countries.
Furthermore, according to the same report, Medihospes, the company that won the management of the centers for 133 million euros for the first two years, has not yet signed the contract with the prefecture of Rome, even though 17 months have passed since the end of the tender, when the maximum deadline for finalizing the contract was 60 days.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi had hoped that the new European Pact on Asylum and Migration would enable the full operation of the center in Gjadra, but this possibility seems increasingly remote, as EU member states continue to disagree on the operational lines of the pact./La Repubblica
