Koja: They use Albania as a bogeyman to scare migrants

Italy is facing elections, so the agreement between Rome and Tirana to build two centers on Albanian territory for receiving immigrants greatly favors the Italian Prime Minister, while Albania lacks the appropriate capacities, both in terms of security and economics, to participate in such an agreement, Gjergj Koja, a journalist, analyst, and human rights activist, says.

As Koja emphasizes, the mentioned agreement primarily reminds him of what the United Kingdom did when it threatened to send illegal immigrants to Africa, which the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom eventually rejected.

"Today, African immigrants are told: we will take you to Albania. It seems like Albania is being used as a 'bogeyman.' Perhaps this is related to events outside our country's borders, to show skeptical states within the EU that they have an obligation to accept their quota of immigrants, something that has not been done to this day. Almost half of the EU countries do not accept illegal immigrants," Koja says for Kosovo Online.

Our interlocutor states that Albania does not have the appropriate capacity, neither in terms of security nor in the economic aspect, to participate in such an agreement.

"It has been said that the number of immigrants who will come here is very small compared to the number of immigrants arriving on the Italian shores, but the question arises of how many of them will be able to be returned if their asylum is rejected. According to official data and what the local media report, Italy has managed to return only 20% of those whose asylum was rejected, and 80% of them remain in Italy," Koja says.