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Britain seeks Italy-like agreement for migrants, Rama tells 'The Guardian': I told Johnson, Sunak and Starmer no

2025-06-26 12:25:35Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Britain seeks Italy-like agreement for migrants, Rama tells 'The
Edi Rama and Keir Starmer

A UK plan to send rejected asylum seekers to "return centres" in third countries shows that post-Brexit Britain is "in a very dark situation", the Albanian prime minister has declared.

In his first interview with international media since his Socialist party's historic fourth-term victory, Edi Rama said that the idea of ​​the UK "looking for places to dump migrants" would have been unimaginable a decade ago.

But according to him, this idea is in line with the change in public discourse in Britain since Brexit, where "the unacceptable, the ridiculous and the shameful" have become commonplace.

The plan for "return centres", announced last month by Keir Starmer during a visit to the Balkans, envisages the establishment of several centres in third countries, where the claims of people who have been refused asylum and who have exhausted all legal avenues in the UK will be processed.

"It's one of those things that 10 years ago would have been unimaginable ... that Britain would be looking for places to dump migrants," Rama said from Tirana, the Albanian capital.

“The fact that today it is not only imagined, but is happening, is not because Keir Starmer or [Rishi] Sunak are doing something outrageous; it is because the country is in a very dark state.”
Rama, known for his forthright and often counter-intuitive stances, expressed disappointment at the level of public discourse in the United Kingdom. As a self-proclaimed Anglophile, he said it was difficult to accept. “Eighty percent of the things that are said, written or accepted as normal part of discourse in Britain today are things that [before Brexit] would have been completely unacceptable, completely ridiculous, completely shameful,” he said.

Under previous Conservative governments, relations between the United Kingdom and Albania became increasingly tense, clouded by dinghy crossings and accusations of illegal Albanian immigrants "invading" British shores.

Starmer’s visit in May – the first ever by a British prime minister – was intended to put bilateral relations on a new footing. During his stay in Tirana, the Labour leader said talks were underway “with a number of countries” about setting up return centres. But in what was seen as a mild criticism of his guest, Rama told a joint press conference that Albania would not be part of the scheme.

Seeking to clarify his position in the interview, Rama said that Starmer, a “very honest [and] very nice man,” had not made such a request publicly and was not the first British leader to privately broach the subject. Rama stressed that his response had always been the same: “I have been clear about this since Boris Johnson asked me and then Rishi … I have always said no.”

The fact that Albania had previously agreed to a similar scheme with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was different because of the “very special relationship” between the two countries. The deal, which envisages stopping people at sea and sending most not to Italy but to a reception centre in Albania where their asylum claims would be processed, has so far been hampered by legal challenges.

Since the day Albania's brutal Stalinist regime fell in 1991, Italy has always been close to his country, Rama said. As a result, his compatriots have "a weakness" for Rome.

“Practically, we are a country made up of two independent states … Italy has always been there for us, in every dark moment and difficult situation since the day we emerged from the hell of being the North Korea of ​​Europe,” he added. “[We] have a weakness for Italy, so when Italy asks us for something, we say yes, period.”

Rama’s stance coincides with a newfound confidence as this small country – among the poorest in Europe – is taking once-unimaginable steps towards EU membership. In a significant change of pace and tone that he attributes to the “new geopolitical spirit” that has gripped European policymakers since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, membership negotiations have accelerated as Brussels finally looks to include the Western Balkans. The region has long been seen by Moscow as part of its sphere of influence.

Rama, who turns 60 in July, campaigned on a promise to continue resolutely on the path to EU membership. He now believes negotiations will be concluded by 2027 and “by 2030 we will be an EU member state.” Albania, which joined NATO in 2009, has been a candidate country for membership for more than a decade.

“The whole approach to the process has changed dramatically,” he said. “Now they [the EU] are very eager to move forward … With the Russian aggression everything changed, so in a way Vladimir Putin did that too – he made Europe much more interested in unification.”

He sees a similar impact on the EU from the new occupant of the White House and is “100% convinced that Donald Trump’s victory is a good thing for Europe.” Rama said Trump’s victory woke Europe from its slumber and brought “a disturbing spirit” that the world needed.

"I think when Trump says that God saved him because he had a plan for America, he's only telling half the truth. God saved him because he had a plan for Europe too - to wake him up," he said.

Later this year, the Albanian painter-turned-prime minister will embark on a “thank you” tour of diaspora communities that, for the first time, were given the opportunity to vote in last month’s elections, helping to propel his landslide victory. More than 500,000 ethnic Albanians are thought to live in Greece alone. Rama’s hope is to lure them back to his homeland, “because now our salaries are very close to those in Greece – and this is home.”

But the Socialist Party leader, 6 feet 11 inches tall and a former basketball player in his youth, has his critics. Accusations of corruption in Albanian society are widespread. So are accusations of growing authoritarianism – Rama is set to become the longest-serving leader since Enver Hoxha, the country’s brutal former dictator – though these accusations are dismissed as ridiculous by his admirers and officials in Brussels.

A former EU minister declared: “Eddie is larger than life. His problem is that he is too big for his country – and I don’t mean in terms of height.”

If Albania were to join the EU, Rama said it would be “the right and most wonderful moment to hand over the baton.” It would be a personal achievement, but it would also “help Europe be less boring and more sunny.”/The Guardian


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