Belgian justice and migration ministers will visit Kosovo and Albania this week for talks on the possibility of relieving the country's overcrowded prison system, local media reported, BTA reports.
Belgian representatives are expected to discuss with their counterparts from the two Balkan countries the possibility of transferring prisoners convicted of crimes and without the right to stay in the EU. Belgium is ready to rent cells or invest in the construction of a new prison in Kosovo or Albania for this purpose.
Belgium suffers from a constant shortage of places in prisons - there are currently 13,000 prisoners with a capacity of 11,000 places. Of these, 4,400 are in prison with irregular stay documents. The two Balkan countries have been approved as potential places for the transfer of convicts, according to a decision by the Belgian migration and asylum services.
The Belgian authorities emphasize that any foreigner without a right to stay who has committed a crime must leave the country - either be returned to his homeland or sent to a prison outside Belgium. Belgium is seeking to implement the model of Denmark, which concluded a similar agreement with Kosovo in 2021. According to it, the first prisoners will be transferred in 2027, and Denmark will invest over 200 million euros to build 300 places in a Kosovo prison that meets Danish requirements.
Belgium will also try to reach an agreement in principle that some of the funds of Kosovo and Albanian criminal groups convicted in Belgium for drug trafficking will be transferred to the Belgian budget. According to authorities, eight cases against Albanian criminal groups have been closed, in which 160 million euros have been seized.