Albania investment to curb migrant costs says Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 5 - Italy is investing in three new Italian-run migrant centres in Albania in order to contain the cost of processing migrants, Premier Giorgia Meloni said on a visit to a hotspot in the port city of Shengjin with Prime Minister Edi Rama on Wednesday.
    "We are not spending additional resources but we are making an investment," she said about the centres, which rights groups have criticised as creating a new Guantanamo but which other countries have said they may well copy.
    The bilateral protocol, Meloni said, "envisages spending 670 million euro for five years, 134 million per year" which, she added, "corresponds to 7.5 per cent of the expenses related to the reception of migrants on the national territory: these resources are not to be considered an additional cost.
    "Migrants brought here to Albania would have had to be brought to Italy, where they cost (more) money.
    "The most useful element of this project is that it can be an extraordinary tool to deter those who want to reach Europe irregularly, and to combat traffickers. And this also means cost containment".
    The opposition has said the scheme is too expensive and will not make a big dent in migrant numbers. (ANSA).