CPR centre in Albania to be activated says Piantedosi

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 24 - Two Italian-run centres opened by Italy last year in Albania don't need to become repatriation centres (CPRs) because one already exists within a facility, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Monday in Venice.
    The migration centres in Albania "can't become CPRs because one already exists inside a multipurpose facility", noted Piantedosi.
    "Therefore we only need to activate it as soon as possible given the theme of recuperating places available in CPRs on the national territory", added the interior minister, noting that "this won't change its original function, which is multipurpose".
    Piantedosi also said that, "by the middle of next year at the latest the new regulations of the migration pact" and therefore "new European laws" will come into force.
    "That centre will also maintain the other functions for which it was originally intended", added the minister regarding the fast-track processing of asylum rquests in a third country.
    The implementation of a protocol between Rome and Tirana for the fast-track processing of asylum seekers at the two facilities has so far been stymied by Italy's courts.
    The two centres of Shengjin and Gjader are currently empty after Italian courts failed to validate the detention of the first three groups of migrants taken there in October, November and January.
    Meanwhile in a note issued on Monday, the leader of the largest opposition member, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) Elly Schlein, said Piantedosi had sanctioned the death of the two centres in Albania "which have cost Italians nearly one billion euros" The minister "certified the complete failure of the Albania model", said the note, adding that Piantedosi and Premier Giorgia Meloni should stop their plan as "current European legislation does not allow to delocalize a repatriation centre to a third country.
    "Moreover, the protocol provides for only a small part of the Albanian centres to be used as CPRs so the protocol with Albania and the law should be revised in order to use them as CPRs", said Schlein in the statement. (ANSA).