Amnesty: Italy's Albania hubs undermine rights

Amnesty International has said Italy's migrant detention hubs in Albania undermine human rights, calling the conditions in the centres a "wake-up call" for European Union plans to process asylum seekers outside the bloc, according to Politico Europe.

The report, published this week, details the situation in the two centres that Italy opened in Albania under a controversial agreement to transfer some migrants rescued at sea to facilities outside EU territory, the news outlet reported.

The criticism arrives as the EU considers replicating the model, with several member states examining similar arrangements for processing asylum claims and returns in third countries.

Amnesty's assessment focuses on the legal and material conditions in the Albanian centres, which were established to house migrants intercepted in Italian search-and-rescue zones while their asylum claims are processed. According to Politico Europe, the organisation said the situation there should serve as a warning against broader EU plans to create return hubs in non-member states.

For Calabria, the story is not abstract. The region's coastline, stretching from the Tyrrhenian to the Ionian seas, has long been a landing point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean, and the port of Gioia Tauro is a node in the wider trafficking networks that foreign investigations have documented. The Albanian scheme was designed in part to relieve pressure on southern Italian reception systems, which have repeatedly buckled under the weight of arrivals.

The Amnesty report does not address Calabria directly, but its findings feed into a debate that resonates along the region's shorelines: whether the EU's externalisation of asylum procedures can be squared with the rights protections that member states are bound to uphold. The organisation's call for a rethink, as reported by Politico Europe, comes as the Italian government has defended the centres as a necessary tool to manage migration flows.

The EU's interest in the model, noted in the Politico Europe report, suggests the controversy will not end with Italy. As European leaders weigh similar arrangements, the conditions in the Albanian hubs and the human rights concerns they raise are likely to remain a point of contention between national governments and civil society groups.