Not yet a minister, Théo Francken is already making a lot of noise and announcing the strictest migration policy ever adopted by Belgium. One of the dreams of the political star of the N-VA is clear: to create a prison in Kosovo and send there all the prisoners staying illegally in Belgium.
For Théo Francken, “this will have a deterrent effect on future customers“, he who specifies that he is not the only one thinking about it, since Denmark is already developing a comparable project, while other European countries are also thinking about the question.
There remains this crucial question: would a prison in Kosovo for illegally staying prisoners be in compliance with the law?
No, this has already happened. Belgium has already, in the past, expatriated detainees to the Netherlands. It was in 2010, when the then Minister of Justice, Stefaan De Clerck, rented the Dutch prison in Tilburg, which was empty.
Regarding a prison in Kosovo, a priori, nothing illegal. However, legal texts will be needed to organize this move, if it takes place.
According to the Prison Observatory, this is not what will solve the problem of overpopulation, which is partly attributed to illegally staying prisoners.
If there are so many inmates in prisons, it is because they are, most of the time, sentenced more harshly. There are few or no alternative sentences for them, since they have no accommodation.
Still according to the Observatory, a prison in Kosovo will not tackle the roots of the problem; it’s just a populist proposal. Worse, it will be expensive.
Just to know what we’re talking about: 650 prisoners served their sentences in Tilburg, the Netherlands, for the sum of 42 million euros per year.
theo francken n-va prisons kosovo
