Civil society organisations launch campaign on costs related to centres in Albania

The coalition of civil society organisations "Asylum and Immigration Table (TAI)" launched the campaign "Renditi Conto" focusing on the costs of the migrant centres built by the government in Albania.

The online campaign shows an unexpected charge of EUR 74 million (data from the ActionAid Retained Report 2025)  for the construction of centres in Albania, the only fully documented expenditure under the Italy-Albania Protocol and highlights some aspects of the "Albanian model" that have always remained in the background. Beyond the economic cost of the project, the campaign highlights the human, social and democratic costs  of the model.

The highest cost of these centres is borne by the detainees themselves: isolated, deprived of personal freedom, moved without information on their destination or the reasons for their transfer; people whose rights to health and care are thwarted, with limited access to legal protection, and for whom even communication with their families is extremely difficult. Many of the detainees experience severe psychological distress, which can lead to extensive use of psychotropic drugs as well as repeated acts of self-harm, including suicide attempts.

Alongside the human cost is a  democratic cost: access to information is limited even for parliamentarians, a  lack of transparency for citizens and a lack of public scrutiny. Civil society organisations, the media and even parliamentary delegations visiting the centres have encountered several difficulties in obtaining essential data on the number of people detained, the procedures applied and the conditions of detention in the centres. 

Finally, there is an  economic cost  that falls on the entire community: over EUR 670 million by 2028, according to government estimates, which CSOs claim diverted from truly essential services that would benefit society as a whole: nurseries, schools, hospitals, intensive care beds, specialised scholarships for healthcare workers, and the strengthening of social, healthcare and welfare services.  

Thanks to collaboration with several Italian and European parliamentarians, TAI gained access to the centres and conducted independent monitoring, which revealed serious critical issues regarding rights, transparency and guarantees, both in the initial phase of the project and in its subsequent extension to the detention of people from Italian CPRs.

TAI has long called for the closure of the centres in Albania, as the practices being implemented undermine the protection of rights and the quality of democracy, both in Italy and Europe. The Italian government is experimenting with a new form of delocalisation, moving the frontier beyond national borders and normalising the idea that rights and guarantees can be moved distant from the public oversight. This is, according to TAI, a worrying shift in outsourcing policies, underway for several years also at the European level.