ROME (Reuters) -Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday that her government was “determined” to continue sending sea migrants to Albania, despite judicial opposition to the scheme.
Meloni was speaking during a summit in Rome with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing by Alvise Armellini)
Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.
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One year after Italy opened migrant camps in Albania intended to hold people intercepted at sea, the legally contested centres lie almost empty.
Numerous NGOs have criticised living conditions inside the camps, and Italian courts have struck down several attempted deportations to Albania.
But as the European Union discusses the possibility of creating its own “return hubs”, Italy’s far-right government appears committed to sending migrants to offshore detention centres in Albania.
– ‘Very concerning’ –
On October 16, 2024, two detention centres opened in the port of Shengjin and the village of Gjader, located in northern Albania but managed by Rome.
That same day, dozens of cameras filmed the arrival of the first Italian naval ship carrying 16 men from Egypt and Bangladesh, arrested at sea as they tried to reach the EU.
Their identities were first verified at the port. Then they were sent to the Gjader camp, where they could wait for an asylum claim to be processed if they lodged one.
But very quickly, four of the men were identified as “vulnerable” and sent back to Italy.
Within two days, the remaining 12 men would be sent back too, after an Italian court ruled against their detention.
The court cited disagreements over the list of “safe” origin countries created by the Italian government, which included nations that do not meet European legal criteria.
A year later, Italian judges have repeatedly rejected deportations, slowing plans to place up to 3,000 migrants in the camp.
According to legal expert Gianfranco Schiavone, a report by Italian NGOs found that in all, 132 people were sent to the Albanian centres.
Of them, only 32 have been repatriated, although details on how many were returned to Italy or sent to another country are unclear.
It is also hard to obtain official confirmation about the programme details and camp conditions — the Albanian authorities referred AFP’s query to the Italians, who did not answer specific questions about the scheme.
“The situation is very concerning due to the extreme difficulty for detainees to exercise their fundamental rights in general,” Schiavone said.
According to a report by a group of NGOs, at least nine people have attempted suicide while being held in the camps, and there have been 21 cases of self-mutilation.
– ‘The Italian experiment’ –
Amid ongoing legal battles, Italy plans to use the camps as detention facilities for people awaiting deportation after already being deemed to be “illegal” migrants by Italian authorities.
This repurposing will also likely be blocked by European courts, Schiavone said.
“There is no provision for the administrative detention of foreigners awaiting expulsion in Italy to be carried out in a non-EU country.”
But this could change in a few months if the “return regulation”, currently under debate in the European Parliament, is adopted: the framework would open the way to the creation of migrant centres outside the EU’s borders.
Since her election in 2022, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made fighting irregular immigration a key policy of her government.
The legalisation of Meloni’s experiment would represent a significant political win for her far-right Fratelli d’Italia (FDI) party.
But Filippo Furri from the Italian NGO ARCI said that he hopes the EU reconsiders this approach and instead deems it “illegal or economically unsustainable”.
Meanwhile, the risk for people migrating is that “this Italian experiment spreads to other countries”, he said.
During a visit to Albania in May, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed his desire to create “return hubs”.
But his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama was reluctant to open another programme in his country and said the Italian model “takes time to test”.
“If it works, it can be replicated. But not in Albania, elsewhere in the region,” Rama said.
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After experiencing a drive-by shooting in Kansas City, 37-year-old Sam Correll decided he was “just done” with the U.S. It was the summer of 2024, and 60 days later, he and his partner, 29-year-old Spencer Claiborne, had sold their home in Missouri and moved to Europe.
They are among more than 1,000 Americans who have expatriated over the past year—a phenomenon that has been on the rise since the beginning of the year. Roughly 1,285 U.S. citizens left the country in the first quarter of 2025, according to a report from CS Global Partners, which analyzed statistics from the U.S. Federal Register. That is about 102 percent more than in the last quarter of 2024.
Should Americans continue to leave the U.S. at that pace, 2025 could mark a record in the number of U.S. citizens relocating abroad—an exodus that could put the country’s economy in trouble.
Correll and Spencer had considered leaving the U.S. for a while before the event that prompted them to decide the time had come for their big move.
“I was actually at a cheesecake factory picking up a piece of cheesecake to take to a friend in the hospital, and there was a drive-by shooting during prom season,” Correll said. “I got knocked over from the stampede of kids running away from the shooter outside. And I was just there, like, ‘What are we doing? It’s time for a change,’” he said.
Correll and Spencer swapped Kansas City—the city of the Chiefs and Taylor Swifts, as their European friends know it—for Albania, a country that was not on their radar when they started their search for a new home away from home.
“We went to Portugal, Malta, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and had a great time, but we didn’t really click with a specific city or anything,” Correll said.
Then they learned that Albania offers Americans 12-month visa-free travel on arrival. “It’s a really, really easy destination to leave and then figure it out as you go, as opposed to someplace like Portugal or Italy.”
That made the difference for Correll and Claiborne, who were able to depart their previous life behind quickly—leaving their first home, which they had bought in Kansas City in 2019.
“It was a historic stone cottage that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we really poured a lot of heart and soul into,” Claiborne told Newsweek. “I like to say it was like a child. We had finally gotten it all finished and it was exactly what we wanted—and that was the point in which we were selling,” he said.
Claiborne was a little hesitant at first to let it all go, “Like, man, we just spent all this time and effort and energy to make our house perfect,” he said. “But I wasn’t going to let that hold us back.”
Now Claiborne, who is talking to Newsweek from their sun-kissed terrace in Albania with views of the sea, “can’t imagine a better place to live.
Both Correll and Claiborne left good jobs behind—one was a tech consultant working with global companies, the other sold accounting software and helped large companies implement enterprise systems.
But one of the things they love about living in Albania is that the work culture there is not nearly as demanding as in the U.S.
“The U.S. is just so work-oriented. You wake up before the sun rises, you get in your car, you commute to work, you work, and then you go home after the sun sets, and maybe you have a couple hours of television,” Claiborne said.
“And I think as I got more into the kind of rut and routine of a corporate career, I realized that’s not something that was going to make my soul feel happy for another 30, 40 years,” he added.
The lower cost of living in Albania, as well, has helped to make up for some of that lost income.
While Claiborne and Correll worried about taking a pay cut and striking out on their own, they found something they love doing in Albania: helping others who might want to leave the U.S. through their company, Smile Abroad.
They started with an idea to open a dental tourism business there, but that quickly morphed after they realized, through Facebook and Reddit, “the sheer number of people that were feeling similar to the way that we were feeling, especially as this year progressed and as the new administration came into power,” Correll said.
The couple has been receiving five to 10 calls a day for months from people seeking urgent assistance in “getting out” of the U.S. A Reddit post discussing their experience moving to Albania has garnered nearly 500,000 views as of now.
Through the business route opened up by their new initiative, they were able to apply for residency. “It’s very straightforward for Americans. The requirements are very minimal, to be frank. It’s a very easy path,” Correll said. “This is up to the immigration office, but oftentimes Americans are issued five-year residency permits upon their first application.”
Correll and Claiborne have been pleasantly surprised by Albania, a place where the first question someone asks you upon meeting you is not, “What do you do?” they said. They have found the peace of mind they were seeking in disconnecting from the U.S., which now feels a world away.
“I think I was having a conversation the other day with an Albanian friend of mine trying to explain the concept of food deserts, which is something that we have a lot in America, where there’s no grocery store, no access to fresh food within walking or driving distance of a lot of homes,” Claiborne said. “That’s just not a concept here in Albania. There’s fresh fruits, fresh veggies.”
The couple have found a thriving community of digital nomads and expats, and they have been trying to mingle with the locals.
“It’s also been wonderful to disconnect from the noise and the chaos that’s going on in the United States,” Claiborne said. “One of the things I like to tell people when they have a consultation call with us is that, after you get out, a lot of people do what we did—which is you kind of sleep, you kind of hibernate for like a month,” he explained.
“And then you come out of the fog and you’re free from the noise. You can hear fireworks in the distance without ducking, thinking it’s gunshots. And you can kind of relax and enjoy life. And so that’s definitely been what I think we’ve gained from this.”
Surprisingly, both think they have been made more patriotic by living in Albania. “Hearing our language teacher talk about how, during communism, it was the voice of American news, the Radio Free Europe, that alerted them to the fall of Yugoslavia. You know, it’s really opened my eyes to the good that America and Americans do and have done across the globe,” Claiborne said.
But neither is thinking about going back to the U.S. anytime soon. “I think prices are too high. Of course, never say never, but I’m very happy being in Albania now,” Claiborne said.
“I very much appreciate and love the country that I was born in, but it’s in a dark spot right now. And for my mental health, at least, it’s not a place that I want to be,” Correll said.
What is your name, and what do you do?
Claiborne: My name is Spencer Claiborne. I am 29 years old and I am now a relocation consultant helping people move to Albania. Before this, when I lived in the United States, I sold accounting software and helped large companies implement enterprise systems. So quite the career change.
Correll: I’m Sam Carell. I am 37 years old. I was a tech consultant in the U.S. working with global companies, building their websites and the back end of that sort of thing. And since moving to Albania, I still do a little bit of that, but we are largely helping people relocate to Albania.
When did you decide to leave the U.S.?
Correll: We had thought about this for a few years. We’d talked off and on, we wanted to look for something new. In late 2023, early 2024, we took a three-month scouting trip throughout Europe. We dove into YouTube and decided, these are potential countries we might find a home in. We went to Portugal, Malta, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and had a great time, but we didn’t really click with a specific city or anything.
“It solidified, at least for me, that we definitely wanted to leave the Midwest, but we didn’t have the right spot yet. So we went home. After being there a couple of months, I was actually at a cheesecake factory picking up a piece of cheesecake to take to a friend in the hospital. And there was a drive-by shooting during prom season. I got knocked over from the stampede of kids running away from the shooter outside. And I was just there, like, ‘What are we doing? It’s time for a change.’ And I think that really was a springboard for us to, like… Take action, list our house, and leave. And 60 days later, we were in Albania.
Did you have any reservations about leaving the U.S.?
Claiborne: No, not really. My family was very supportive. But we had a home in Kansas City which we had bought in 2019, and it was our first home. It was a historic stone cottage that during the COVID-19 pandemic, we really poured a lot of heart and soul into. I like to say it was like a child. And so, we had finally gotten it all finished and to be very, very nice and just exactly what we wanted. And that was the point in which we were selling.
“I think I was a little hesitant, like, man, we just spent all this time and effort and energy to make our house perfect. But I wasn’t going to let that hold us back. I think that was basically it, honestly, is the house. But I’m much happier here. I can’t imagine a better place to live, being able to wake up and look at the sea.”
Now you’ve set up a business to help other Americans move to Albania. When did you realize there was a market for this?
Claiborne: Our intention wasn’t to build a business to help Americans move abroad. We actually started a business to help people with dental tourism in Albania, and we still do that. Hence the name [of our website] Smile Abroad, it was going to be about dental tourism. But it really morphed into something more than that when we realized, especially through Facebook and Reddit, all the sheer number of people that were feeling similar to the way that we were feeling, especially as this year progressed and as the new administration came into power. That they really wanted to get out.
“And what makes Albania uniquely attractive, especially for Americans, is that they can get 12 months visa-free travel on arrival. So it’s a really, really easy destination to leave and then figure it out as you go, as opposed to someplace like a Portugal or Italy, where you have to do a lot of work in the States, a lot of coordination before you even land. For a lot people, this has been an urgent concern. And Sam has been taking five, 10 calls a day for months now from people that really need urgent assistance in getting out.
What have you gained from this move?
Correll: I can tell you what I’ve lost, and that’s about 70 pounds. Definitely peace of mind, happiness. Look, I was having a conversation the other day with an Albanian friend of mine trying to explain the concept of food deserts, which is something that we have a lot in America, where there’s no grocery store, no access to fresh food within walking or driving distance of a lot of homes. That’s just not a concept here in Albania. There’s fresh fruits, fresh veggies.
“I think we’ve also found a community of a lot of other nomads and expats and local friends. And also just, it’s been wonderful to disconnect from the noise and the chaos that’s going on in the United States. One of the things I like to tell people when they have a consultation call with us is after you get out, a lot of people do what I did, which is you kind of sleep, you kind hibernate for like a month. And then you come out of the fog and you’re free from the noise. You can hear fireworks in the distance without ducking thinking it’s gunshots. And you can kind of relax and enjoy life. And so that’s definitely been what I think I’ve gained from this.
Claiborne: The U.S. is just so work-oriented. You wake up before the sun rises, you get in your car, you commute to work, you work, and then you go home after the sun sets, and maybe you have a couple hours of television. And I think as I got more into the kind of rut and routine of a corporate career, I realized that’s not something that was going to make my soul feel happy for doing, you know, for another 30, 40 years.
“And while I definitely worry sometimes about taking a pay cut and striking it out on our own and doing our own thing, I have been much more satisfied with both the ability to help people really transform their lives by moving abroad and by the wonderful work-life balance that’s offered here in the Mediterranean. And also the lower cost of living here in Albania helps make up for some of that lost income.
Would you ever consider going back to the U.S.?
Claiborne: I’m never gonna say never, we have a long life ahead of us. And I love America. I think moving to Albania has actually made me more patriotic and more appreciative of America and what it stands for across the world. You know, hearing our language teacher talk about how during communism, it was the voice of American news, Radio Free Europe, that alerted them to the fall of Yugoslavia. It’s really opened my eyes to the good that America and Americans do and have done across the globe. That being said, in the near term, I don’t see returning. I think prices are too high. Of course, you know, never say never, but I’m very happy being in Albania now.
Correll: I very much agree with that. I’m not gonna write it off. Like, I very appreciate and love the country that I was born in, but it’s in a dark spot right now. And for my mental health, at least, it’s not a place that I want to be.
WITH two bodyguards on patrol permanently outside his office, chief prosecutor Kreshnik Ajazi sums up why the Albanian drug gangs he targets are so ruthless.
“In Albania, we have a tradition — revenge.”
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A trail of tit-for-tat killings between warring gangs battling to control the UK drugs market shows he knows what he is talking about.
The theft of 50 kilos of cocaine in England triggered a string of revenge attacks back in Albania, including three men being gunned down in their Range Rover with AK-47s.
And a dealer convicted of murdering a rival in Southampton has been shot dead inside an Albanian top-security prison in a sophisticated revenge hit that cost a million euros to arrange.
As the Met probes yet another killing of an Albanian man in London, The Sun travelled to the former Communist country to investigate the criminal gangs that have such a foothold in the UK.
Mr Ajazi, a stylish 40-year-old who wears shirts monogrammed with his initials on the cuffs, has devoted his life to dismantling these gangs — but it comes with a heavy price.
Threats to his life mean the armed guards never leave his side, 28 security cameras are trained on the outside of his office building in the city of Elbasan, and his wife wonders when he will take a job prosecuting “normal criminals”.
But he is too busy to worry, with many of the attacks he deals with stemming from bloody fall-outs that begin in Britain.
The lawyer said: “These disputes between gangs are created in England but the revenge takes place in our city. When I became the chief prosecutor, my aim was to challenge those gangs, which we have done.
“That means I am now escorted every single minute of my life by a special escort from the state police, which tells you what sort of danger I am in.
“But it has been worth it.”
Thanks to his and the state police’s work, the local gang-related murder rate has dropped from 15 a year to zero.
The UK government is just as determined to take on the Albanian organised crime gangs.
The National Crime Agency last month signed an agreement with Albanian police to challenge criminals who control the UK cannabis market as well as enjoying a healthy slice of the £4billion cocaine trade.
Around 1,700 gang members are thought to be at large in the UK and there are more Albanians in our jails than any other foreign nationality, even though Albania has a population of just 2.8million.
As well as trying to lock up gang leaders, the police are hitting them where it hurts — in their pockets.
A British-registered £200,000 Lamborghini — with a number plate that partly reads 14MBO (Lambo) — was recently seized from a suspected criminal, along with a hotel he owned. And the cops now plan to use it as a patrol car.
A spokesman for Albania’s Agency Of Seized And Confiscated Assets said: “We will send a message that what has been earned from criminal activities in the UK and Europe will be confiscated.”
The problem is that in Albania revenge is a tradition so we cannot predict what is going to happen
Mr Ajazi
When the police Lamborghini rolls past, it will raise a smile from law-abiding Albanian migrants. But other cases the police have to deal with are no laughing matter.
Organised crime gangs are similar to the Mafia in that they are structured around families. That means they take disputes personally.
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In 2018, a shipment of 50 kilos of cocaine — with a potential market value of tens of millions of pounds — went missing in England.
The gang waiting for its delivery suspected the courier so they beat him up and dumped him in a remote location, reckoning that whoever he had tipped off to steal the drugs would come to his aid.
They kept watch to see who would collect him — and once they knew which family was behind the theft, the killings began.
Soon after, Endrit Alibej, 34, was driving away from a family dinner in Elbasan with his uncle Arben Dylgjeri, 56, and a Turkish associate.
As they slowed to negotiate a roundabout, a gunman armed with an AK-47 struck, spraying the vehicle and killing all three men.
Alibej’s family wasted no time in taking revenge and the killings continued for two years, eventually claiming a total of eight lives.
Mr Ajazi said the to-and-fro attacks related to that particular dispute have ended — for now.
He added: “Let’s say they are currently on standby.
“The problem is that in Albania revenge is a tradition so we cannot predict what is going to happen.”
Another case Mr Ajazi is involved in shocked the Albanian justice system because it exposed the full extent of corruption in prisons.
In 2013, Albanian drug dealer Arben Lleshi, 27, was jailed for life at Winchester Crown Court for killing a rival in Southampton and setting his body on fire.
He was extradited to serve his sentence in the top-security Peqin Prison, 40 miles south of capital Tirana.
Late last year, his victim’s gang began plotting their revenge.
They spent an estimated one million euros bribing prison officials to smuggle a 9mm Smith and Wesson into the jail and to pay a hitman.
The gun was passed to the killer in the middle of November and he kept it concealed for three weeks before going to Lleshi’s cell ten days before Christmas.
Mr Ajazi said: “He invited that man to talk. He said, ‘Can we have a conversation?’
“And at this moment, he took out the gun and shot and killed him.”
The jail’s entire command structure has been arrested — 12 officers in total — on suspicion of taking bribes and turning a blind eye.
Back in Britain, an Albanian man was stabbed to death in North London last month, with one of his countrymen being charged with the murder.
And the Met are now investigating yet another killing of an Albanian.
These disputes between gangs are created in England but the revenge takes place in our city
Lawyer
At around 5.30pm on Monday, March 11, a white Kia car was seen reversing down a road in Greenford, West London, before one of the occupants leapt out and fled.
Moments later Bajram Luli, 27, staggered out of the car with a serious stab wound to his stomach.
Cops and paramedics were called but they could not save him.
A man has now been charged in connection with the alleged murder and will stand trial later.
Bajram had only just moved to the UK from Albania. The motive for his killing has not been revealed and there is no suggestion he was involved in any criminality.
But the police back in Albania — and chief prosecutor Mr Ajazi — will be hoping these two recent cases are not the start of yet more blood feuds.
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A BRITISH bobby’s helmet takes pride of place on a shelf in the grand governmental office of Albania’s Interior Minister, Taulant Balla.
The gift from a visiting UK police delegation shows the commitment of both countries to forging closer links to fight organised crime.
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Mr Balla has had a series of meetings with UK ministers to thrash out ideas on how best to stop trafficking gangs.
One success has been the 90 per cent drop in the number of Albanians crossing the Channel in small boats.
And the no-nonsense politician – popular in Albania for an anti-drugs drive outside schools which has seen more than 800 dealers convicted – is confident of a similar result against the narco gangs.
Mr Balla said: “We have had good results in the fight against organised crime.
“We are working closely with Britain’s National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police, and we have some joint operations ongoing.
“I’m very happy that from the British side we are receiving a lot of expertise and are exchanging important data that is needed in bringing people to justice.
“Also, the work in seizing criminal assets is going very well.
“Houses and hotels we seize are being used for good purposes. And the Lamborghini that was seized will be used by our traffic police.
“My message to the organised crime gangs is – impunity time is finished. We are having a campaign against the fugitives.”
As he spoke, his mobile phone pinged with more good news – a message revealing the date that a wanted killer who had been on the run abroad would finally arrive home to face justice.
Albania’s fight against crime is a long, difficult one. But with the help of British police, they are finally reaping rewards.
Robin Perrie
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BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration.
In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024.
“There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”
With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical.
Who will be next?
In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration.
Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go.
Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next.
Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.
Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.
The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week.
After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion.
Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.
Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers.
If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June.
But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.
The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns.
Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected.
The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.
New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.
The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.
The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds.
The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.
Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls.
Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats.
The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.
The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.
Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders.
Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades.
The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.
Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals.
While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.
Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law.
Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble.
Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative.
If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later.
The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.”
Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz.
A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders.
Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be.
Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.
A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics.
Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.
Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.
A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.
Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.
Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.
Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry.
Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out.
But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process.
The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area.
The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.
Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.
Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.
Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.
In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.
Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.
Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals.
The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli
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LONDON — It was the gleaming smiles and mutual backslapping of two 40-something banker bros which signalled a new era of U.K.-EU relations.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron looked like natural bedfellows as they riffed off one another at a friendly Paris press conference in March, announcing a sizeable £478 million package to deter migrant crossings through the English Channel.
The contrast with the petty name-calling of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss eras was clear to see.
Sunak’s warm and productive summit with Europe’s most high-profile leader confirmed a more collaborative relationship with the EU and its national capitals after the turmoil of the Brexit era. Less than two weeks earlier, the British PM’s landmark Windsor Framework agreement with Brussels had finally resolved post-Brexit trading issues in Northern Ireland.
“My hope is that [the agreement] opens up other areas of constructive engagement and dialogue and cooperation with the EU,” Sunak told POLITICO en route to the Paris summit.
Six months on, his words have been borne out.
In addition to the Windsor Framework and English Channel agreements, Britain has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Brussels on regulatory cooperation in financial services, and this month rejoined the EU’s massive €96 billion Horizon and Copernicus science research programs — a major result for the U.K.’s research and university sectors after two years of uncertainty.
Next on the agenda is a cooperation deal between the British government and the EU’s border protection agency Frontex — another move that brings Britain closer to the EU in a small but meaningful way.
The deal, confirmed by the Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday, is expected to be similar to other deals Frontex has with non-EU countries, like Albania, which allow the sharing of data on migration flows.
“We have seen concrete steps created by a new climate of good faith,” said a London-based European diplomat, granted anonymity — like others in this article — to speak candidly about diplomatic relations.
“We missed that before, and so that’s the Sunak effect. I wouldn’t say he’s done an amazing job, but he’s changed the state of mind — and therefore he has changed everything.”
In addition to a renewed focus on relations with fellow leaders, Sunak has impressed EU diplomats with his willingness to face down the vocal Brexiteer wing of his own party, which has long seemed — to European eyes — to hold outsized influence over successive Tory prime ministers.
Earlier this year Sunak enraged Tory right-wingers by abandoning a controversial pledge to scrap or rewrite thousands of EU-era regulatory laws which remain on the British statute book by the end of this year, to the delight of EU capitals.
“The improving relationship is built on the fact there’s now a willingness to find solutions and engage in a way that wasn’t there in the previous administrations,” a second London-based European diplomat said.
Negotiations continue between Sunak’s government and Brussels over other outstanding areas of dispute — chief among them tough new tariffs due to be imposed in January on electric vehicles (EVs) being shipped in and out of the U.K. which do not conform to strict sourcing requirements for electric batteries.
On Wednesday the U.K.-EU Trade Specialised Committee will meet to discuss the issue, with British ministers increasingly hopeful Brussels will agree to scrap the end-of-year deadline after heavy lobbying from German automakers and its own European Commissioner for trade, Valdis Dombrovskis.
Catherine Barnard, a European law professor at Cambridge University, said overall Sunak had overseen a “much more positive relationship” with Europe, albeit one conducted on a “pay-as-you-go basis.”
“This is looking much more positive and it’s putting some meaning on dealing with our European neighbors as friends, rather than as foes,” she said.
“But equally, we’re not talking about a comprehensive and thorough renegotiation — quite the contrary.”
No. 10 Downing Street agrees the shift is less profound than some media observers — or grumbling Tory MPs — would like to think.
A No. 10 aide said Sunak sees his diplomatic efforts as “normal government,” noting that “we’ve just forgotten what it looks like” after the turmoil of the post-Brexit era.
“I know it’s following Brexit and all that nonsense we’ve seen over the last few years, and it’s nice to see any small win or small argument to bridge that divide, but this is just normal government relations,” the aide said.
Sunak, of course, is 18 points behind in the opinion polls and faces an uphill struggle to stay in office at a general election expected next year.
But his opponent, U.K. Labour leader Keir Starmer, has made clear he too wants closer cooperation with Europe should he seize power.
Starmer said this month a future Labour government would use the upcoming review of the post-Brexit trade deal, expected in 2025 or 2026, as a chance to reduce border checks through the signing of a veterinary agreement and to increase U.K.-EU mobility for some sectors of the economy.
And he told a conference in Montreal last weekend that that “we don’t want to diverge from the EU” in areas such as working conditions or environmental standards.
These comments were seized upon by Tory ministers as evidence that Starmer would bring the U.K. even further into the EU’s orbit than he has publicly admitted — something the Labour leader denies. Tory campaigners hope to use such comments in campaign attacks painting Starmer as an anti-Brexit europhile.
But some observers suggest such political attacks are ironic, given Sunak’s own direction of travel. Barnard, quoted above, says that “what Keir Starmer was saying in Canada last week is pretty much a description of where we’re at at the moment.”
A senior moderate Tory MP said that despite the attacks on Starmer, Sunak is “not overly ideological when it comes to the EU.”
“There’s always been a belief in Brussels that we would inevitably come crawling back to them, and we’re seeing that a bit now,” they said.
Nevertheless, it is unclear how much closer Britain and the EU can get without a fundamental renegotiation of the terms of Brexit — something all sides insist is off the table.
One area for agreement is the need for enhanced security and defence links, with next year’s European Political Community Summit in Britain providing a potential opportunity for further announcements.
Some in Westminster speculate that this could come in the form of Britain joining individual projects of the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation — a body which coordinates the bloc’s security and defence policy. The European Council invited Britain to join its “military mobility project” alongside Canada, Norway and the U.S. in November 2022.
Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank , said he’s “not convinced” of the potential benefits for Britain, considering the U.K.’s existing position in NATO and other organizations.
He believes the British government will run out of road in finding mutually beneficial areas of cooperation with Brussels.
“The EU is relatively happy with the status quo,” Menon said. “It’s only in the U.K. where people say we need to move closer … There are so many bigger fish to fry for the EU.”
Stefan Boscia
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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron missed the boat on Ukraine.
Faced with Russia’s military build-up and subsequent invasion of its neighbor, Macron dove down a rabbit hole of fruitless talks with Vladimir Putin. At a moment when he could have taken the helm as the leader of Europe, he miscalculated and failed to seize the political initiative.
Instead, in Europe, it was the likes of the Euroskeptic British premier Boris Johnson who took the lead on rallying support for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and providing arms. While Johnson was a hero in Kyiv, Macron infuriated the Ukrainians by insisting that Putin should not be humiliated and suggesting that Moscow deserved “security guarantees.” Ukraine, the French president said, was “in all likelihood decades” from joining the EU.
But a sea change has taken place in Paris since. The French president has now picked up the mantle as one of Ukraine’s strongest allies, pledging support “until victory,” seeking to lead on issues such as NATO membership and military support, just as Europeans fret that U.S. support is flagging, with increasing concerns that a potential Donald Trump presidency could deprive Ukraine of its most important ally.
“Macron was fixated by the idea of playing a mediation role between Putin and Zelenskyy. And this meant he was extremely prudent when it came to arms deliveries,” François Heisbourg, senior adviser to the International Institute for Strategic Studies said. But early this year “Macron finally understood that Putin was taking him for a ride, and wasn’t interested in negotiating,” he added.
French diplomats, however, won’t go further than to say the president “has clarified” his position on Ukraine.
Where the French have broken most significantly from their long-standing position is on the issue of EU enlargement. Beyond the war in Ukraine, France is now seeking new allies, wants to lead on enlargement and is war-gaming how an enlarged EU would work. There is frenetic diplomatic activity behind closed doors in Paris and beyond. The French government is leading consultations and testing red lines ahead of a big speech Macron is set to give early next year, setting out his ambitions for enlargement that has already been dubbed “Sorbonne bis,” according to several French officials, in a reference to a policy-setting Europe speech Macron gave at the Sorbonne University in 2017.
For months following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the French president appeared to zig-zag on how to deal with Russia. Putin was a personality he had struggled to read. In a 2019 interview with the Economist, Macron mapped out a picture of how he reckoned a logical Putin would ultimately come to the realization that he would need to form “a partnership project with Europe.” It was a generous vision of Putin’s mindset that underestimated the gnawing historical primacy of the Ukraine question.
In December last year, Macron’s U-turn started to become more evident. He gave a forceful speech saying he would support Ukraine “until victory.” Only a couple of weeks earlier he had stated that the West should give Russia “security guarantees.”
In May this year, Macron hinted at a new awareness, telling Central and Eastern Europeans in Bratislava that he believed France “had sometimes wasted opportunities,” and failed to listen to their memories of Soviet brutality.
That same month, France gave the U.K. permission to export Franco-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, which was followed by deliveries of French long-range SCALP-EG cruise missiles. According to Heisbourg, it was a decisive signal, because France was doing what the U.S. has so far refused to do.
But Macron’s previous diplomatic serenades toward Putin have left their mark. According to a French diplomat, Macron “shot himself in the foot” in making too many overtures to Moscow, telling reporters that “Russia should not be humiliated.” In the early months of the war, “it overshadowed what we did do, the military support, the European unity,” said the diplomat who like others quoted here was granted anonymity to talk candidly about a sensitive matter. Another French diplomat put it more bluntly: “Macron missed his Churchillian moment.”
Macron’s government is now firing on multiple fronts in favor of Ukraine: EU enlargement, military support and NATO. This month, the French presidency announced they were opening talks with Ukraine to sign a bilateral security agreement following the NATO summit in Vilnius.
“We are not naïve, we took a big step … but we are not kidding ourselves that people will think France has changed overnight,” said a third French diplomat.
As recently as 2019, Macron was opposed to opening membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania.
“France has never been anti-enlargement, but it has always been prudent about it,” said Georgina Wright, Europe director at the Paris-based Institut Montaigne. “France has always said the EU must deepen before it can widen, because there was a fear by enlarging the EU would become more dysfunctional,” she said.
But in a recent speech, Macron called for “boldness” in embracing enlargement, floating the idea of a “multispeed Europe” to keep up the drive toward greater integration.
For France, the change is also set against the realization that the Balkans and Moldova — not just Ukraine — are on the front lines of a hybrid war against Russia.
“There’s a real awakening that we are on the eve of a historic moment, similar to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, with a new wave of EU enlargement …which will help stabilize the Continent,” said Benjamin Haddad, an MP for Macron’s Renaissance party.
But the change of heart may also boil down to some hard-nosed political calculus. France’s initial diplomatic initiatives with Putin alienated Central and Eastern Europeans. With talk of the center of gravity shifting eastward, France needs support beyond its traditional allies such as Germany, Italy and Spain, if it wants to influence the change it now sees as inevitable.
With the European election looming next year, France is gearing up for a battle of opposing visions, between Europhiles arguing the EU protects citizens and populists shining a spotlight on the Union’s failings.
In France, where the far-right National Rally is riding high in the polls, and most recently the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy slammed ambitions to bring Ukraine into the Union — an anti-enlargement position held by several French political heavyweights before him, the fight is expected to be bloody.
Haddad says his camp will argue that the EU, even enlarged, will protect citizens against the upheavals of the world: the war in Ukraine, “a predatory China,” and a possible Trump presidency. “If the far right had been in power … Russia would be occupying all of Ukraine,” he said.
But what may also undermine Macron’s new drive is what Heisbourg calls “the temptation towards mediation,” adding that the French president failed to recall France’s policy on Taiwan during a visit to Beijing, in a bid to get China to play a mediation role with Russia.
“This temptation makes our partners skeptical despite the real and profound change [in France], the fear is that we might return to our old ways,” he added.
Clea Caulcutt
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In an unusual diplomatic move, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni settled a restaurant bill of four Italian tourists who left a restaurant in Albania without paying.
Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama raised the issue with his Italian counterpart while Meloni was visiting Albania with her family last week. The incident reportedly took place in Berat, which sits on the Osum River, .
Meloni responded by telling her ambassador to “go and pay the bill for these idiots,” Italian paper La Stampa reported. The bill amount to around €80, according to the BBC.
Italy’s embassy in Albania confirmed that it paid the bill with Meloni’s personal funds.
“The Italians respect the rules and pay off their debts and we hope that episodes of this kind will not repeat themselves,” the embassy said.
Francesco Lollobrigida, the Italian agriculture minister, told Reuters that it was a matter of national pride. “She offered to pay the bill. The ambassador was on his way back to Tirana and was available to do this,” he told the news service. “A few dishonest individuals cannot embarrass a nation of decent people,” Lollobrigida said.
Antoaneta Roussi
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Sprinkle the sequins and pump up the volume: The annual Eurovision Song Contest reaches its climax on Saturday with a grand final broadcast live from the United Kingdom’s city of Liverpool.
There will be catchy choruses, a kaleidoscope of costumes and tributes to the spirit of Ukraine in a competition that since 1956 has captured the changing zeitgeist of a continent.
Last year, 161 million people watched the competition, according to the organiser, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), making it one of the world’s most-watched events.
Here’s what to expect as acts from across Europe – and beyond – vie for the continent’s pop crown.
This year, 37 countries sent an act to Eurovision, selected through national competitions or internal selections by broadcasters. The winner of the previous year’s event usually hosts the contest but, as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues, the UK is doing the honours this year on behalf of 2022’s winner, Ukraine.
Six countries automatically qualify for the final: last year’s winner and the five countries that contribute the most funding to the contest – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.
The others must perform in the semi-finals with 20 acts chosen by public vote on Tuesday and Thursday.
The qualifiers are: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.
The final takes place on Saturday at the Liverpool Arena.
Eurovision is not just geography. Eurovision is hugely popular in Australia and the country was allowed to join the competition in 2015. Other entrants from outside Europe’s borders include Israel and Azerbaijan.
It is hard to predict the winners in a contest whose past winners have ranged from ABBA to Finnish metal band Lordi, but bookmakers say Swedish diva Loreen, who won in 2012, is the favourite with her power ballad Tattoo.
Finland’s Käärijä was a crowd-pleaser in the semifinals with his pop-metal party tune Cha Cha Cha and Canadian singer La Zarra, competing for France, is also highly ranked for her Edith Piaf-style song Évidemment.
And never underestimate left-field entries like Croatia’s Let 3, whose song Mama ŠČ! is pure Eurovision camp: an anti-war rock opera that plays like Monty Python meets Dr Strangelove.
About 6,000 people will attend the final, hosted by longtime BBC Eurovision presenter Graham Norton, Ted Lasso and West End star Hannah Waddingham, British singer Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian rock star Julia Sanina.
Each competing act must sing live and stick to a three-minute limit but is otherwise free to create its own staging – the flashier the pyrotechnics and more elaborate the choreography, the better.
Russia’s war in Ukraine will lend a solemn note to a contest famed for celebrating cheesy pop.
The show will open with a performance by last year’s winner, folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra, and singer Jamala, who won the contest in 2016, will perform a tribute to her Crimean Tatar culture. Ukraine has won the competition three times since the country started taking part in 2003.
One person who will not be appearing is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He asked to address the final by video but the EBU said that such a talk would breach “the nonpolitical nature of the event”.
After all the acts have performed, viewers in participating nations can vote by phone, text message or app but are not allowed to vote for their own country.
This year for the first time, viewers watching from non-participating countries can also vote online, with the combined “rest of the world” votes being given the weight of one individual country.
National juries of music industry professionals also allocate between one and 12 points to their favourite songs, with an announcer from each country popping up to declare which has been granted the coveted “douze points” (12 points).
Public and jury votes are combined to give each country a single score. Ending up with “nul points” (zero points) is considered a national embarrassment. The UK has suffered that fate several times – most recently in 2021. It bounced back last year, however, when Sam Ryder came second and is hoping this year’s contestant, Mae Muller, will also turn in a strong performance.
Eurovision is being shown by national broadcasters that belong to the EBU, including the BBC in the UK, and on the Eurovision YouTube channel. In the United States, it is being shown on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.
Russian President Vladimir Putin taking on the rotating monthly presidency of the 15-member United Nations Security Council came just after a young boy was killed by artillery launched by Moscow’s invading forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Saturday.
“Unfortunately, we … have news that is obviously absurd and destructive,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address Saturday night. “Today, the terrorist state began to chair the U.N. Security Council.”
The Ukrainian leader announced that a five-month-old child named Danylo had been killed by Russian munitions in Donbas on Friday. “One of the hundreds of artillery strikes that the terrorist state launches every day,” the Ukrainian leader said. “And at the same time, Russia chairs the U.N. Security Council.”
Even though the position at the top of the Security Council is largely ceremonial, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Russia’s presidency a “slap in the face to the international community” given the ongoing conflict.
The last time Russia held the rotating monthly presidency was in February 2022, when Putin ordered the brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
At present, in addition to the five permanent members, the U.N. Security Council also includes countries supportive of Ukraine such as Japan, Ghana, Malta and Albania, along with others such as the United Arab Emirates, Mozambique and Brazil which take a more neutral approach to the conflict.
In his Saturday address, Zelenskyy also said he had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron for an hour on Saturday. He also welcomed Switzerland’s decision — as another temporary U.N. Security Council member — to join the 10th sanctions package against the Russian state.
Joshua Posaner
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TIRANA, Albania (AP) — The Albanian government on Wednesday formally designated the Vjosa River and its tributaries a national park, starting with an investment of some $80 million (75 million euros) to stop wastewater being poured into the river.
Authorities held a ceremony in a move aimed at preserving what they called one of the last wild rivers in Europe, which runs for 270 kilometers (170 miles) from the forest-covered slopes of Greece’s Pindus mountains to Albania’s Adriatic Sea coast.
“Today we protect for ever Europe’s last wild river,” said Prime Minister Edi Rama. Albanian officials say the free-flowing Vjosa is largely untouched by development and human impediments in its course.
Tourism and Environment Minister Mirela Kumbaro said the national park would include more than 12,700 hectares (32,000 acres), including the 190 kilometer (120 mile) long Albanian section of the river, where more than 60,000 people live.
The river and its surrounding areas are ecosystems of substantial biodiversity and home to over 1,100 species of animals. Two of the plant species and 13 of the animal species are assessed as globally threatened by International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN.
The project will seek to address water and land pollution, waste management, and deforestation. Additionally, officials say, the National Park will create economic opportunities for local communities through responsible tourism, and help address depopulation.
Kumbaro’s ministry has signed an agreement with Patagonia, a California-based outdoor clothing company that supports environmental projects, to assist in the plan.
“Standing on the banks of the Vjosa today, we are humbled to know that this exceptional river and its wildlife will be conserved forever,” said Patagonia’s CEO Ryan Gellert.
Boris Erg, director of the IUCN’s European regional office, applauded Tirana for the decision and offered to support its implementation. He also called on other regional governments to show similar ambition and help reach what he called the “vital goal” of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030.
Albania’s government has cancelled plans for eight hydropower stations on the Vjosa and its tributaries. Environmentalists say the dams would have caused serious damage to the river.
Authorities now need to resolve what to do with a half-built hydropower station at Kalivac on the Vjosa.
Environmentalists have also warned that a new, multimillion-euro international airport being built where the Vjosa River flows into the Adriatic near the city of Vlora would cause irreparable damage to the fragile ecosystems of protected lagoons that host flamingos, pelicans and millions of other migratory birds.
Rama rejected the criticism, saying a “file as big as a mountain” has been prepared on the airport’s environmental impact, promising that the project “in no way is a threat to the ecosystem.” ___ Follow Llazar Semini at https://twitter.com/lsemini
New York
CNN
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The former head of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York field office was charged in two separate indictments Monday for allegedly working with a sanctioned Russian oligarch after he retired and concealing hundreds of thousands of dollars he received from a former employee of an Albanian intelligence agency while he was a top official at the bureau.
Charles McGonigal, a 22-year veteran of the FBI until he retired in 2018, was arrested Saturday at John F. Kennedy International Airport when returning from international travel, a source familiar with the arrest told CNN. The charges, announced by the US attorney’s offices in the Southern District of New York and Washington, DC, mark a dramatic fall for McGonigal, who has surrendered his passport and is currently prohibited from any international travel.
He entered a plea of not guilty via his attorney at an arraignment Monday afternoon in New York on charges in connection with violating US sanctions, conspiracy, and money laundering for working in 2021 with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who was sanctioned for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election.
Prosecutors allege McGonigal and Sergey Shestakov, a former Russian diplomat who has most recently worked as an interpreter in New York federal courts in Manhattan and Brooklyn, violated US sanctions by digging up dirt on Deripaska’s rival at the time he was already sanctioned.
In Washington, McGonigal is charged with concealing connections he had with the person who decades earlier worked for an Albanian intelligence agency, including receiving $225,000 in payments. A prosecutor for the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York indicated that federal prosecutors in Washington, DC, set a remote initial appearance for Wednesday on those charges.
Prosecutors allege McGonigal, as an employee of the FBI, was required to disclose overseas travel and contacts with foreign nationals, which he failed to do.
On Monday, Southern District of New York prosecutors told Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave that they had reached a bail package agreement with McGonigal’s attorney. Cave granted the agreed-upon package to release McGonigal on $500,000 personal recognizance bond co-signed by two undisclosed individuals.
McGonigal must disclose any domestic travel outside of the southern or eastern districts of New York to the court except court appearances in Washington. Defense attorney Seth DuCharme told the court that McGonigal’s work involves international travel and said he might at some point ask for a bail modification.
Prosecutors allege that during several trips overseas to Albania, Austria, and Germany, McGonigal failed to disclose on US government forms that he met with the prime minister of Albania, a Kosovar politician and others.
In one meeting, prosecutors allege McGonigal urged the prime minister of Albania to be “careful about awarding oil field drilling licenses in Albania to Russian front companies.” The former employee of Albanian intelligence who paid him $225,000 had a financial interest in the government’s decision about the contracts.
One of the cash payments – $80,000 – was allegedly given to McGonigal while he sat in a parked car outside of a restaurant in New York City.
Under McGonigal’s direction, the FBI opened an investigation into a US citizen’s foreign lobbying effort based on information he received from the former employee of Albanian intelligence, according to the indictment. McGonigal never disclosed his financial relationship.
The charges out of New York allege that he first met the Russian interpreter, Shestakov, in 2018 while at the FBI through a Russian intelligence officer, known to be a diplomat previously for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Soviet Union and Russian Federation.
After he retired from the FBI in 2018, McGonigal was brought on as a consultant for a New York law firm working on Deripaska’s sanctions, the court filing says. McGonigal traveled to London and Vienna around 2019 to meet with Deripaska and others about getting the Russian oligarch “delisted” from the US sanctions list.
In 2021, they allegedly removed the law firm from the picture and McGonigal and Shestakov worked directly for Deripaska.
The former FBI agent and Shestakov attempted to hide their involvement with Deripaska, using shell companies and forged signatures to receive payments from the Russian oligarch.
In 2021, McGonigal was allegedly working to obtain “dark web” files for Deripaska that he said could reveal “hidden assets valued at more than 500 million us $” and other information that McGonigal believed would be valuable to Deripaska.
That effort was abruptly halted when the FBI seized their personal electronic devices in November of that year.
Shestakov faces one count of false statements for attempting to hide his relationship to the former FBI agent during an interview with FBI agents after the search warrant was executed.
Deripaska, an ally of Putin, was sanctioned by the US in 2018 in response to Russian interference in the 2016 election and was charged with violating US sanctions in September.
He is one of the most well-known oligarchs in Russia and, and his name came up during the Trump-Russia investigation. He was mentioned dozens of times in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which says he is “closely aligned” with Putin.
This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.
CNN
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After over twenty years in captivity, Mark, the last of Albania’s “restaurant bears,” has safely arrived at his new home, an animal sanctuary in Austria, according to the animal rescue group Four Paws International.
So-called “restaurant bears” have historically been kept in tiny cages near restaurants or hotels, where they served as an attraction for tourists, according to Four Paws. In 2016, the nonprofit launched the “Saddest Bears” campaign in an effort to relocate the more than 30 bears being used as entertainment in the country.
Mark, a 24-year old brown bear, is the last known “restaurant bear” in Albania, according to a news release from Four Paws, although there are other bears in captivity in poor circumstances in the country. He was rescued on December 7 and arrived at his new home, “BEAR SANCTUARY Arbesbach” in Austria on Friday.
When Four Paws first encountered Mark, the animal was suffering from severe health problems. He was overweight, had broken teeth and displayed “abnormal” behaviors like pacing due to the lack of stimulation in his cramped cage, Four Paws said in a previous news release.
The bear embarked on a 44-hour journey to his new home, according to the organization. He traveled through North Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary before finally reaching the sanctuary.
But he was “calm and relaxed” during the trek, according to Four Paws.
“We made regular stops for our accompanying vet to check on him and fed him with fruits and vegetables,” Magdalena Scherk-Trettin, who coordinates Four Paws’ wild animal rescue and advocacy projects, said in the release. “After receiving an inappropriate diet of restaurant leftovers and mainly bread for two decades, he was a little reluctant about the vegetables, but munched happily on the grapes we gave him.”
Mark was slow to explore his snowy new habitat, according to Four Paws. He hadn’t stepped outside a cage in over twenty years. He’ll stay in a smaller outdoor enclosure for the time being until he adjusts to his new environment and moves to a larger enclosure.
The sanctuary in Arbesbach has operated since 1988, according to its website. Mark will join three other rescued grizzly bears who live on 14,000 square meters of “natural surroundings.”
“With Mark’s rescue we ended the cruel practice of keeping him next to a restaurant to attract and entertain visitors,” Four Paws’ president Josef Pfabigan said in the release. “We are now one step closer to a world where people treat animals with respect, empathy and understanding.”
TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s president on Sunday granted citizenship to British pop star of Albanian origin Dua Lipa for what he said was the artist’s role in spreading Albanians’ fame internationally through her music.
President Bajram Begaj said Lipa was granted citizenship ahead of Albania’s 110th anniversary of independence from the Ottoman Empire. Begaj said he considered it an honor to do so because Lipa has made Albanians famous throughout the world.
“I will be an Albanian with papers too,” Lipa said before taking her citizenship oath at Tirana city hall.
Lipa was born in London in 1995 to immigrant Albanian parents Anesa and Dukagjin Lipa from Kosovo.
Lipa, who started singing at five years old, was musically influenced by her father, a former singer and guitarist of a rock band. She started to post her songs in YouTube when she was 14. Her first debut studio album was released in 2017. In 2019 she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Together with her father, she co-founded the Sunny Hill Foundation in 2016 to raise funds with annual concerts held in her native Kosovo to help people experiencing financial difficulties.
“It is an indescribable great joy with such acceptance, love and everything,” said Lipa. The artist then took a passport photo, was fingerprinted and signed an application form for an identity hard and passport.
Lipa will wrap up her annual concert tour in Tirana’s main Skanderbeg Square on Monday to commemorate Independence Day.
SHKODER, Albania — Torrential rains in the Balkans over the past two days led to floods that killed at least six people, prompted widespread evacuations and caused significant damage, authorities said Monday.
One of the most impacted areas was in northwestern Albania, where thousands of acres of agricultural land and hundreds of homes were flooded. Authorities evacuated scores of families amid power outages.
Early Monday, police divers found the bodies of two missing men, a father and son whose car was washed away Sunday in the village of Boge, some 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital Tirana.
Swollen rivers in Montenegro and parts of Serbia claimed four lives over the weekend. A woman and her two children drowned in Montenegro when their car plunged into a river as it was going over a bridge. In southern Serbia, a 2-year-old boy drowned after falling into a river.
Authorities in the southern Serbian region of Raska proclaimed a state of emergency because of the heavy flooding and the army was deployed to help the local population with evacuations and deliveries of drinking water and food.
Torrential rain of up to 400 millimeters (14 inches) in 12 hours on Sunday caused the Drini River, the longest in Albania, to overflow its banks by at least 10 centimeters (4 inches), according to the authorities.
At least 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) of agricultural land was flooded in Shkoder and Lezhe districts, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Tirana.
Hundreds of army troops were sent to evacuate families after more than 600 homes were flooded.
“Shkoder is at the moment isolated from the rest of the country,” said Mayor Bardh Spahia.
Farmers, who have repeatedly suffered from floods in the post-communist era, voiced despair at their losses, which included livestock, and asked the government to help.
“We need government assistance because damage from flooding is very, very grave,” said Lina Zefi, 60, in Kuc village, less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Shkoder.
The historic 18th century Lead Mosque in Shkoder was also under water — after suffering damage from past floods.
Flooding also affected areas in western Kosovo, causing some damage to buildings and school closures but no reported casualties.
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Semini reported from Tirana; Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.
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Follow Llazar Semini at https://twitter.com/lsemini
TIRANA, Albania — Thousands of Albanian opposition supporters on Saturday protested the country’s cost-of-living crisis, blaming it on the center-left government.
Opposition supporters gathered in front of the main government building, shouting that Prime Minister Edi Rama of the ruling Socialist Party should resign.
The protest was mostly peaceful but at the end some broke the police line and sprayed red paint on the main doors of the government building. Others lit candles to memorize two people killed by police in the last years.
Police intervened and at least one protester was taken away.
Albania has seen an 8% price hike this year, especially for basic food and fuel following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Opposition supporters have also blamed Rama for the thousands of young men who leave the country each year in search of a better life.
Rama says his Cabinet has kept inflation low compared to double-digit inflation elsewhere in Europe, and has noted that government subsidizes electricity for families and small businesses.
The protest was organized by the opposition center-right Democratic Party and attended by its leader Sali Berisha, a 78-year-old former president and prime minister, and former President Ilir Meta, now leader of the leftist Freedom Party.
Albania holds a municipal election in May.
Berisha called on Albanians to support the opposition, which has pledged to double wages and pensions if it gets back into power.
But his party has been plagued by infighting after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last year barred Berisha and his close relatives from entering the U.S. for “corrupt acts that undermined democracy” during his 2005-2013 tenure as prime minister.