Competing norms and differential positioning: return and readmission to Albania from Germany and the UK

This paper focuses on the normative dimension of return from the perspective of contestations around practices of return and readmission in destination countries. It will do so by drawing on the example of return and readmission to Albania from Germany and the UK. It is based on empirical research conducted between 2019-2022 in Albania with returnees and stakeholders as well as desk research about the return regimes of countries. The case pairs are puzzling for number of reasons. Albania is known to be readily collaborating on readmission from EU countries like Germany resulting in continuously high return rates. At the same time, the question of how to deal with Albanian irregular migration to the UK remains a contested and unresolved issue with low return rates despite a recently signed readmission agreement with Albania. Reasons for different readmission pathways between the UK and Germany may be partly attribued to differing cost-benefit calculations (e.g. EU’s incentives for visa liberalization) of the Albanian government regarding the incentives and conditionalities as well as the possibilities for remigration of those returned migrants. Through comparative cases, the paper aims to contribute discussions on how returning states (e.g. Germany and UK) push for their policy objectives by using incentives and conditionalities in the context of competing norms, for example, regarding protection duties for the victims of human trafficking, childrens’ rights and minority rights and how these differential positionings influence actual practices on the ground. The paper also pays attention to the actual the experiences of returnees as they are the main stakeholder in the entire return and readmission debate.