Migrants, Meloni meets Rama: ‘A large-scale European agreement with Albania’

“Italy and Albania are historically friendly nations, who are used to collaborating together and I want to thank Prime Minister Rama and the Albanian people once again for offering their help and having signed a wide-ranging European agreement with us”. This was stated by the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who, together with the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi, went to Albania to visit the Shengjin hotspot intended for the entry procedures of migrants. With the prime minister also the Albanian prime minister Edi Rama who said he was “sorry” for the “half-truths” about his country that have been written and spread by the press in Italy since the bilateral agreement on the management of flows was launched migratory. “I have experienced the torment of my soul for having seen all this undeserved mud thrown at Albania and the Albanians, half-truths spread by journalists, including public service ones. Those who have transformed the democratic right to oppose an abuse of the fourth power should be ashamed “.

“Alarming data” on the flow decrees

From monitoring over the last two years, “alarming data” have emerged in “some regions, above all Campania”, according to the scenario illustrated yesterday by Meloni in the Council of Ministers after having delivered a complaint to the national anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Melillo on the application of latest flow decrees. And the move was accompanied by the claim of a reduction of “60% of illegal arrivals compared to the same period in 2023”. A result, “possible above all thanks to the collaborative relationships with the countries of North Africa, Tunisia and Libya in the lead”, underlined the Prime Minister, convinced that the agreement with Albania for the realization of of the two centers.

“Infiltration by organized crime”

The Interior Ministry estimates 21,574 migrants have landed so far since January, compared to 51,628 in the first five months of last year. But it is on another phenomenon that the Prime Minister focuses: the distortions and possible mafia interference in the system of entry into Italy for work reasons, including seasonal ones, within the quotas established in the Prime Ministerial Decrees issued periodically. At the end of 2022, the Meloni government launched a decree for 82,705 people in one year, and then in 2023 it made the quota planning a three-year period, setting it at 452 thousand people, expanding professional categories and production sectors. The first monitoring, explain government sources, has revealed a machine that is now in enormous difficulty. As well as the strong suspicion of “fraud” also linked to the “infiltration of organized crime”, on which Meloni announced “administrative and regulatory” interventions to be launched in a Council of Ministers after the G7. And a modification to the Bossi-Fini law already proposed a few months ago by the undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano is looming. In light of the complaint, the anti-mafia prosecutor’s office will be able to activate the district prosecutor’s offices, according to its functions “of impetus and coordination of investigations”.

A new shadow on De Luca

For now the picture painted by the Prime Minister is that of “a number of applications for work authorization for non-EU citizens, during the click day, totally disproportionate compared to the number of potential employers, be they individuals or companies”. And on this issue you have opened a new front with Vincenzo De Luca, with whom you have been at loggerheads for some time. “His bullying hides a form of insecurity”, the latest jab at the governor of Campania, on which Meloni casts a new shadow after the reconnaissance on the application of the last two flow decrees. On the click day of the 2022 flow decree, the highest number of requests came from Campania, 109,716, five times as many as those from Lazio and Veneto. The attack, however, also extended to previous governments. “It is reasonable to believe that the same degenerations have been dragging on for years and I am surprised that no one has realized it”, underlined Meloni, announcing that the executive will modify “the operational features that led to these distortions, and we will do so in compliance of the principle that inspired the Bossi-Fini law which has regulated the phenomenon in recent years: that is, allowing entry into Italy only to those who hold an employment contract”.

see also

Premier meets De Luca in Caivano: “I’m that bitch from Meloni”

Bureaucratic problems

In particular, they explain in government circles, the “short circuit created in the last decade” in the system of authorization for visas and the stipulation of contracts is considered “very serious”: the offices of the One Stop Immigration Office are unable to keep up with the times for opinions, 20 days for seasonal workers, 60 for others, with the result that the silent consent mechanism is almost always triggered. And the chaos also has repercussions on the activity of Italian embassies abroad, which are unable to verify visa requirements. Often, and this is another phenomenon verified in the monitoring, checks on those who arrive with a visa and do not show up at the one-stop immigration desk within 8 days with the employer to deposit the contract are also skipped. The government’s warning also became an input to the DNA magistrates. And the Democratic Party believes it is appropriate for Meloni and Melillo to be heard by the parliamentary anti-mafia commission. A request which, if formalised, will be evaluated on 12 June by the bureau of the commission itself.

read also

Migrants in Albania, 13.5 million euros for the rental of a ship

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SKY TG24 WHATSAPP CHANNEL