Rama: Holland's decision is political, no visa return

Rama said this is a decision in the continuation of an electoral process of a country like the Netherlands, where it is no secret that there is a continued development of an intensive policy against expansion, migrants and Albanians.

“Albanians have been elected by some parties in that country as a Turkish head for aggressive nationalist rhetoric in proportion to developments across the Netherlands' borders in the EU and an aggressive policy against European enlargement policies”, Rama said.

The prime minister stressed that “this is a parliamentary procedure, which has no direct implications on the free movement of Albanians”.

Explaining the procedures more specifically, Rama said that “for revote of free movement must meet some objective criteria, none of which coincide with the reality of the Albanian factor in Holland”.

The best “is that the Netherlands Minister for Justice and Security, present at the parliamentary hearing, reacted in his address, saying there are no negatively met criteria to address this problem with a parliamentary decision. The Minister for Justice and Security in the Netherlands, who visited Albania a few days ago and expressed very positive tones in relation to all performance of co-operation between the two countries”, Rama said.

By focusing on the criteria that must be met for revocation of free movement, Rama said that “must first have a steady increase in irregular immigration from one country to the EU's current country, and here considered doubling those who emigrate”. In fact, Rama said, “has decreased and not increased, or much more doubling irregular migration”.

The second “needs to increase the number of asylum seekers in the current country double. Not only is there not a double increase of Albanian asylum seekers in the Netherlands, but there is a decline. Third, lack of will must be found in co-operation among countries for the return of irregular migrants under international legislation and conventions. In fact, there is increased co-operation and that is highlighted by Dutch authority”, Rama said.

The prime minister also stressed that the fourth criterion concerns the fact that the country under consideration and which the free movement ban process is supposed to set in motion should pose a threat to the country's national security and that there is no such thing.

Regarding the fifth criterion, Rama said that “should be found going back to implementing all technical criteria set for free movement”. “These technical criteria have been systematically assessed at the European Commission, which in December 2018 in routine assessment, has underlined that Albania meets 100% these” criteria, Rama said.