TIRANA, November 13 – The Council of Europe questions Albania’s agreement with Italy on illegal immigrants.
The Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, expresses in a press statement on Monday the concern that this agreement may harm the guarantee of human rights.
“The memorandum of understanding raises a number of important questions, related to timely disembarkation, impact on search and rescue operations, fairness of asylum procedures, identification of vulnerable persons, access to legal aid, etc. In practice, the lack of legal certainty is likely to undermine essential human rights guarantees and accountability for violations, leading to different treatment between those processed in Albania and those in Italy,” she said.
Furthermore, Commissioner Mijatovic is concerned that the example of this agreement may be followed by other countries with the same problems.
According to her, the memorandum of understanding between Albania and Italy leads to a trend towards externalization (delegation to another country) of responsibilities for asylum and externalization measures significantly increase the risk that refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants face human rights violations.
The Commissioner of the Council of Europe calls on member countries to focus their energy on improving the reception system of asylum seekers in their countries. /argumentum.al
