The Danish Minister of Justice, Nick Hækkerup, called him “revolutionary”. But the agreement signed Wednesday by Copenhagen and Pristina for the transfer of 300 inmates from non-EU countries to a Kosovar penitentiary raises new doubts about the hard line taken by Danish governments towards migrants for years.
Migration policies, it should be clarified immediately, in this case have no direct bearing on them. The agreement – which formalizes a declaration of intent by the two governments last December and which repeats experiments already made by Norway and Belgium relying on Dutch prisons – aims to reduce the overcrowding of Danish prisons, whose population has grown by 19 % between 2015 and 2021, while prison guards decreased by an almost similar percentage. On the other hand, Kosovo boasts 7-800 places available in prisons.
The satisfaction of Copenhagen and Pristina
Once the agreement is ratified by the parliaments, Denmark will therefore pay 15 million euros a year (for ten years) to “rent” the penitentiary in Gjilan, 50 kilometers from Pristina, and another 6 million in aid for the energy transition and development. Copenhagen, which expects to be able to start the transfer in 2023, specifies that these are inmates from third countries (excluding terrorists) who would still have been expelled from Denmark once their sentence has been served and that they will be guaranteed the same treatment they receive in prisons. Danes.
Kosovo, for its part, welcomes an initiative “which will strengthen cooperation with the Kingdom of Denmark and demonstrate that the Republic of Kosovo is a serious partner in the democratic world and will always respond to allies”.
However, there is no shortage of Danish associations and activists who have already pointed out that the agreement violates, for example, the rights of sight of prisoners, whose relatives will hardly be able to continue to visit them in Kosovo. The tones of the Minister of Justice Hækkerup, who underlined how “with this agreement Denmark is sending a clear signal to foreigners from third countries condemned to deportation: your future he’s not in Denmark, so you shouldn’t be serving your sentence here. ‘