Albania criticises UK’s lack of cooperation over Channel crossings
An alleged failure by the Home Office to share with the Albanian government the routes taken by those arriving in Britain is being blamed for holding back efforts to stop the Channel crossings.
Government sources in Tirana said that repeated attempts to get information from the UK about those travelling on the small boats had come to nothing, leaving them operating in the dark.
One potential reason for the information not being passed on by the Home Office is the wording of an agreement signed in 2021 on the expedited deportations of those arriving illegally.
The deal is understood to prohibit sharing of information “if the exchange, use or further disclosure” could mean it was given to those from whom people are seeking refuge.
“We have done everything that has been asked of us,” said a source in the Albanian government. “The one thing we have asked for from our British friends is to give us some information on the 140,000 Albanians living in Britain. The UK alone has information on the routes.”
More than 38,000 migrants have arrived in Britain on small boats across the Channel so far this year. About 12,000 are reported as being Albanian compared with a total of 800 last year and 50 in 2020.
Dan O’Mahoney, clandestine Channel threat commander for the Border Force, told the Commons home affairs select committee on Monday that the numbers equated to “1% to 2%” of Albanian men aged between 20 and 40.
Albanian government sources expressed frustration at the lack of effective cooperation given the concerns over the issue in the British government. Tirana has provided Border Force officers to operate at Dover, as requested by the Home Office, and officials have been checking those who were flying out of Albania.
The source said, however, that multiple routes were being used by Albanians including driving to Kosovo to get a bus to Germany and a train on to France.
“They are not doing anything illegal until they get on the small boats,” the source said.
It is further believed that many of the Albanians had not been living in Albania but elsewhere in Europe.
The Albanian government has not seen an uptick in departures from the country to correspond with the rise in numbers crossing the Channel.
The main frustration in Tirana, however, is at the failure of the UK government to implement an agreement on fast-track deportations of those Albanians arriving illegally in the UK via a third safe country.
The lack of progress on the agreement is in contrast with similar deals Albania has signed with France and Germany.
The number of Albanians seeking asylum in the EU this year was 41% lower than in 2019, before the Covid pandemic.
“It gets a bit boring to hear again and again that Albania needs to do more,” the source said. “They would stop coming if they were faced with the risk of being sent back immediately. It worked in Germany and France.”
On Monday, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, told the Commons that there had been “some success in removing people back to Albania within quite a short period of time, but we need to go further and faster”.
But in September, the Home Office admitted in a letter to the refugee charity Care4Calais, which had challenged the policy, that they could not fasttrack the deportation of those claiming asylum.
The Albanian government is also pressing for the UK to provide more effective legal routes to those wanting to migrate. The visa application process was said to be expensive and slow with only a 50/50 chance of admission.