The Albanian exodus to Brindisi and Ceuta

7 March 1991: off the coast of Brindisi, the silhouettes of two approaching merchant ships stand out, crammed with wretched souls who risk causing them to sink along with their entire human cargo: 7,500 people, more than those ships had ever seen in their entire communist existence. With Enver Hoxha’s regime having collapsed in December of the previous year after four endless decades, the Albanians had wasted no time in setting sail to escape poverty and leave behind even the memory of a communism that was at once grim and ridiculous, ruthless and pathetic – and all the more grim and ruthless for being so ridiculous and pathetic. It is estimated that in the first few days of the landings, at least 20,000 Albanians – perhaps as many as 30,000 – managed to make the crossing with all their belongings to this side of the sea. It was not an exodus of 70,000 like the one in Ceuta two weeks ago; they did not swim across, but travelled in the most ramshackle boats ever seen; yet it was still the largest landing of illegal immigrants on the shores of a European country. Here in Italy.

Italy had just signed the Schengen Agreement – the world’s largest area of free movement, now covering over 450 million people – after Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had already done so, and before Spain, Portugal and Greece followed suit in 1992. Even if it had wanted to, therefore, Spain at that time could not have suspended Schengen out of fear that some of the Albanian refugees, having passed through Italy, might reach its borders. But the Italian government’s response to the 60,000 in Ceuta is anomalous: a) as Italy has never before resorted to suspending Schengen except for reasons of international security during the G7 and G8 summits; And b) given how far Ceuta is from our coasts. This fear of massive illegal landings – which will not happen – smacks heavily of electoral posturing and has little to do with reality, not least because the 60,000 in Ceuta dwindled to a few thousand within a matter of days. Italy, which has the Albanian exodus behind it and faces an urgent need for immigrants simply to stay afloat – speaking of the sea and landings – would do well to have a firmer grasp of reality. But was the Albanian exodus really an exodus? To answer this, let us consider the key components of the Albanian presence in Italy, namely: a) Albanians who currently reside legally in Italy, and b) Albanians who have, over time, obtained Italian citizenship.

At the start of 2025, there were 414,000 Albanians legally resident in Italy, having peaked at 488,000 in 2014. However, between 2014 and 2024, over 320,000 Albanians acquired Italian citizenship. It is therefore clear that the decline of 74,000 in the number of Albanians residing in Italy between 2014 and 2024 occurred precisely because a growing number of them had, in the meantime, acquired Italian citizenship. This is so true that the number of Albanians who acquired Italian citizenship between 2014 and 2024 is four to five times greater than the decline in the number of Albanians legally resident in Italy during that period. However, the tally of Albanians who have acquired Italian citizenship must also include all the years prior to 2014 and the year 2025 itself, for which we have only an estimate of at least 200,000 Italian citizenships acquired in total by immigrants in Italy. Based on all the available information (data, but not limited to this) on the subject, it is reasonable to estimate that Albanians have acquired Italian citizenship at least 460,000 times – 140,000 more than the 320,000 instances of citizenship acquisition recorded for the 2014–2024 period, for which precise data are available. Adding this second figure to the number of Albanians legally resident in Italy, it is immediately apparent that just under 900,000 Albanians have chosen Italy, either because they live there legally or because they have acquired Italian citizenship.

In this particular breakdown, Albania is surpassed only by Romania and is almost on a par with Morocco. However, whilst Romania has as many as 1.1 million Romanian citizens legally resident in Italy, fewer than 200,000 of them have acquired Italian citizenship: and the significant difference between the two figures indicates a low propensity amongst Romanians residing in Italy to acquire Italian citizenship, as they evidently prefer the prospect of returning to their homeland as soon as the conditions allow – which almost always coincide with the money saved whilst working in Italy, sufficient to set up a business in Romania. The situation is quite different for Albania: in fact, there are more cases of Albanians acquiring Italian citizenship than there are Albanians residing in Italy – a disparity that is symbolic rather than purely quantitative, as it indicates a strong inclination amongst Albanians, once the necessary time or conditions have been met, to acquire Italian citizenship and become Italian. A trend opposite to that of Romanians, and instead similar to the propensity to acquire Italian citizenship, can be observed among immigrants from Morocco. Emigration from Morocco to Italy is also significant, estimated at just under 850,000 people, divided almost equally between Moroccans legally resident in Italy and Moroccans who have acquired Italian citizenship over time.

But Morocco has a population of 38 million, Romania has almost 22 million, whilst Albania has just 2.7 million inhabitants. And it is in relation to the populations of their respective countries that the differences between immigrants to Italy from these same countries become enormous. This is because Moroccans in Italy – including both those residing there and those who have acquired Italian citizenship – account for 2.3 per cent of Morocco’s population; Romanians in Italy account for 5.8 per cent of Romania’s population, whilst Albanians in Italy account for as much as 32 per cent of Albania’s population: an entirely different order of magnitude. And whilst the first two percentages simply suggest considerable emigration to Italy (that from Morocco being more long-term, that from Romania more temporary), the percentage for Albania suggests not merely massive emigration but something which, if not quite an exodus, certainly shares some of its characteristics: starting, in fact, with the fact that Albanian emigrants in Italy show a very strong inclination to become Italian, acquiring Italian citizenship as soon as they are able to do so.

So – yes – it was certainly no coincidence that, back in 1991, the two ships overflowing with Albanians loomed on the horizon as they approached the port and the city of Brindisi, an event later depicted in Gianni Amelio’s 1994 film “Lamerica”. It was no coincidence because Albanian emigration has never stopped, and the number has risen from 10,000 people back then to almost 900,000 today. Not too many for Italy, which needs immigrants, but perhaps too many for Albania. For it is hard to imagine that Albania, with a population of 2.7 million, can afford to lose – as it did in the three-year period 2022–2024, the most recent year for which data is available, as many as 110,000 citizens renounced their Albanian citizenship to acquire Italian citizenship – without, moreover, the Albanian population residing in Italy having decreased in the meantime by even a tenth of that figure – so it is clear that the flow of Albanians to Italy is far from over. A flow which, were it to continue in the future as it has done to date, would risk resulting in a veritable depletion of Albania’s resources, particularly its finest productive and reproductive forces. And Albania has every reason to be very careful about its approach to migration policy, because the statistics since the end of communism speak a clear language to its governments and ruling classes. With the end of the Hoxha era, Albania’s population has in fact fallen from 3.3 million at that time to 2.7 million today, representing a loss of almost 20 per cent of the population, entirely attributable to emigration and, in particular – if not exclusively – to emigration to Italy. Emigration, which has undoubtedly helped Albania emerge from communism by enabling a balance between resources and population that would otherwise have been far more problematic, could in the long run condemn Albania to a state of decline if it were to erode the country’s best human resources to an unsustainable extent. And, at least from an Italian perspective, this is precisely what could happen. Because, as we have seen, Albanian emigration to Italy tends to be permanent – emigration with no return.

Another indicator of this aspect of Albanian emigration to Italy is its very strong territorial and regional concentration. It is worth noting that of the nearly 900,000 Albanians generally living in Italy, 65 per cent are in the North, 26 per cent in the Centre and only 9 per cent in the South. Such a marked preference for the North and, conversely, such a low preference for the South – and for the islands in particular, where just over 1 per cent of Albanians in Italy live – is a sign of the long-term settlement nature of Albanian immigration, with migrants seeking stable jobs, employment and activities in order to put down roots in Italy as firmly as possible. In this sense, indeed, the geographical distribution of Albanians in Italy – whilst showing us the extent to which they are seeking to settle in our country – also serves as a fairly accurate reflection of the highly uneven appeal exerted by Italy’s regional economic and productive systems on the workforce arriving from abroad. The Gjader repatriation centre for irregular migrants in Albania – so controversial, debated, opposed and obstructed – cannot but be viewed in the context of everything we have said so far: a form of collaboration, specifically regarding migration flows, between two governments and two countries, Italy and Albania, which cannot follow separate paths, but must, on the issue of migration – and not only migration – adopt certain agreed economic and social planning guidelines. The country that relies most heavily on Italy for its migration flows is also the one that Italy has singled out to deter illegal immigration – as those seeking to enter Europe cannot expect to make their way there if they end up in a non-EU country awaiting extradition.

The key point to understand is that the exodus from Albania to Italy is not in Albania’s interests, nor is it in Italy’s interests. What is needed is a broader-ranging strategy that cannot focus solely on migration flows from Albania to Italy; it must regulate those flows without depriving Albania of its resources. The exodus is a thing of the past. Today, we have agreements in which emigration is a component that brings mutual benefits. True. And the government is moving along these lines. But, frankly, there is a world of difference between this approach and suspending the Schengen Agreement for Ceuta.