The Ministry of the Interior published the tender for the management of the three migrant reception facilities that will be opened in Albania, following the agreement signed between the Italian and Albanian governments at the beginning of November. It is a negotiation procedure, i.e. a tender with which the State already identifies the organizations suitable to manage the structures, which are asked to submit an offer by 28 March. The deadlines are decidedly tight due to the opening date: the government wants to open the facilities by May 20th.
The three structures will be able to accommodate just over a thousand people at the same time, and among these there cannot be minors, pregnant women and other people considered vulnerable. One of the three structures will be built near the port of Shengjin, about 70 kilometers north of Tirana, where the disembarkation and identification procedures should take place. The other two will be set up in Gjader, twenty kilometers further north and inland. One center will be dedicated to ascertaining the prerequisites for the recognition of international protection and will be able to accommodate a maximum of 880 people, while the second structure is in fact a detention center for repatriation (CPR) with a maximum capacity of 144 people.
In the intentions of the Italian government in Albania the people rescued by the Italian authorities involved in sea rescue should end: that is essentially the Coast Guard, the Financial Police, or the Navy. So not the people rescued by NGOs (it is not clear exactly why this distinction is made).
The value of the contract is just under 34 million euros, to which must be added reimbursements for transport services, utilities, waste collection, ordinary and extraordinary maintenance, Wi-Fi connection, healthcare . Reimbursement for these services has not yet been quantified.
According to the content of the tender, which follows that of other reception tenders published in the past, the facility in the port of Shengjin will have a medical clinic dedicated to healthcare, a room for outpatient visits, a room with three beds and an isolation room with two places. In Gjader, however, there will be three rooms for outpatient visits, two rooms with three beds, an operating room, an analysis laboratory, a room with instruments for x-rays and ultrasounds, a room for psychological and psychiatric visits. A team of doctors should work within this structure 24 hours a day: a doctor specializing in anesthesia and resuscitation, a doctor specializing in general surgery, a doctor specializing in orthopedics with surgical skills, medical personnel specializing in psychiatry, an instrumental nurse , a social and healthcare worker, a laboratory technician, a radiology technician, a healthcare worker specializing in radiology.
Among the attachments to the notice there are also details of the welcome kits made available to the people welcomed in the facilities. Pants, an undershirt, a t-shirt, one pajama, three briefs and three pairs of socks will be provided. Only one change is expected between summer and winter. Guests will have one roll of toilet paper each per week, one toothbrush per month, one 100 ml tube of toothpaste per month, one bottle of shampoo and one bottle of liquid soap per week, one comb.
As in other reception centres, checks on compliance with supplies are the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior: in many cases those who manage the reception centers do not respect the criteria indicated in the notices, but ministerial checks are occasional.
During the period of stay in Albania the migrants will not be able to leave the centers: if they do, they will be brought back by the Albanian authorities. However, the centers will be able to access lawyers, representatives of international organizations and the European Union who intend to provide legal assistance to asylum seekers, as required by Italian, Albanian and European laws.
Already at the signing of the agreement between the Italian and Albanian governments, many problems related to respect for international and European law in the management of migrants had emerged. Last November the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, said that the agreement does not violate European Union law, “because it is outside of it”. The Commission essentially said that it has no responsibility for the rescue of migrants that occur outside its territory: the point, however, is that the agreement is not limited to rescues that occurred outside of Italian territorial waters, but concerns the migrants rescued by the Italian authorities, therefore by the Coast Guard, the Financial Police or the Navy: they are all bodies that act almost exclusively in Italian territorial waters, except for very rare cases in which it is necessary to go further to rescue people in dangerous situations imminent.
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