(5 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shengjin, Albania – 1 June 2024
1. Various drone of Shengjin port
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shengjin, Albania – 5 June 2024
2. Police officer guards entrance of port
3. Sign reading (Albanian) “Shengjin port directory"
4. Various of port
5. Various of Italian police officers and military personnel at port
6. Various of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and their delegations entering centre
7. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Giorgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister:
“(We thank) All the Albanian people that have offered their help to Italy for having signed an agreement with us that I consider to be an agreement of great European scope.”
8. Italian Carabineri and police guarding building
9. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Giorgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister:
“Italians understand, they are grateful, they are grateful to the Government, they are grateful to the Albanian people for this other important effort of friendship that they are making to give us a hand.”
10. Italian, EU and Albanian flags
11.SOUNDBITE (Italian) Giorgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister:
“We believe that the most useful element of this project is that it can represent an extraordinary tool of deterrence for illegal migrants destined to reach Europe, as well as obviously an effective means of contrasting the networks of traffickers because there are traffickers there that we try to fight which obviously also means leading to cost containment.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shengjin, Albania – 1 June 2024
12. Drone of port
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shengjin, Albania – 5 June 2024
13. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Edi Rama, Albanian Prime Minister:
“If it is an error it is a heart error, not of evil calculations. And I can say that instead of just talking, we tried to do something, not pretending to resolve such an enormous issue.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shengjin, Albania – 1 June 2024
14. Drone of port
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shengjin, Albania – 5 June 2024
15. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Edi Rama, Albanian Prime Minister:
"The Italian government to us has been and always will be the government of a country for which we have a very special friendship and which is a strategic alliance that we want to develop and reinforce with any step."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shengjin, Albania – 1 June 2024
16. Drone of port
STORYLINE:
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni traveled to Albania on Wednesday to thank its government for its unique role in agreeing to host thousands of asylum-seekers while Italy processes their claims, and to tour migrant centers she said will be ready in August.
Meloni denied her day trip was a campaign stop on the eve of the European Parliament election in which migration is a big issue, and blasted criticism of the visit as typical opposition maneuvering.
Meloni and Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama in November signed a five-year deal in which Albania agreed to shelter up to 3,000 migrants rescued from international waters each month while Italy processes their asylum claims.
With asylum requests expected to take around a month to process, the number of asylum-seekers sent to Albania could reach up to 36,000 in a year.
“They (Italians) are grateful to the Government, they are grateful to the Albanian people for this other important effort of friendship that they are making to give us a hand,” said Meloni at a news conference.
Meloni has defended the controversial plan as a necessary component of her crackdown on migration, aiming to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing.
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