Albania will intake Italy’s asylum seekers, as a gesture of gratitude, but not other EU countries, PM says
LA TimesAlbanian Prime Minister Edi Rama attends a news conference following the second intergovernmental EU-Albania conference in Luxembourg on Tuesday. Albania’s prime minister on Tuesday said his government had turned down many requests from other European Union countries to take in thousands of asylum seekers but made an exception for Italy. An Italian navy ship was expected to dock at the Albanian port of Shengjin with the first group of 16 migrants who were intercepted in international waters and whose asylum applications will be processed in two centers in Albania instead of in Italy, under a five-year agreement between the two countries. Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking in Luxembourg at an EU conference, repeated that no other country will be able to operate asylum centers in Albania. Susanna Zanfrini of the group’s office in Italy said the asylum centers are “costly, cruel and counterproductive, and have no place in a humane and sustainable asylum system.” Meloni and her right-wing allies have long demanded that European countries share more of the migration burden.