The Danish government is pressing ahead with the controversial plan to rent 300 prison places at Gnjilane prison in Kosovo, to send foreigners who have been sentenced to deportation. At a cost of around €200 million, Denmark, one of Europe’s richest countries, has agreed that Kosovo, one of Europe’s poorest countries, will receive 300 foreigners sentenced to deportation. Denmark is seeking to alleviate overcrowding and staff shortages in its prisons by sending them more than 2,000 kilometres away. These prisoners have committed crimes in Denmark and will serve the rest of their sentences in Kosovo before being deported to their countries of origin.
Previously, the fanciful Danish idea of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda went the same way as one devised by the previous British government, both of which were scrapped. The crucial difference is that in the case of the agreement between Denmark and Kosovo, it concerns asylum seekers who already have a “deportation notice”. It is not yet clear how Brussels will react.
Although there is a difference between the legal status of a so-called rejected ordinary asylum seeker and that of an asylum seeker who has been sentenced to deportation for a crime – in some cases for offences such as shoplifting – the political process of the Kosovo agreement reveals some of the challenges that governments can face when trying to reach agreements with non-EU countries.
A stealthy plan hatched in 2021
Although the Danish plans for the outsourcing of prison services have been in the making since 2021, they have not really made it into the foreign press until now. Those plans are now closer to materialising, after the Ministry of Justice signed a new cooperation agreement with the Kosovan government in February 2025 to send convicted immigrants to Gnjilane prison.
Denmark’s plan to rent 300 prison places a few kilometres from Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, has been repeatedly postponed for four years, while it has been criticised for exposing inmates to the risk of torture, a practice that, according to the UN and the Council of Europe, is widespread in its prison system.
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Critics of the measure consider it not only costly but also inhumane and fear that it will lead to abuse and discrimination against foreigners.
Several law professors explain that it cannot be ruled out that the plan may affect Danish citizens as well as foreign citizens and that they may be sent to serve their sentences in Kosovo, given the ambiguity of the treaty. The treaty establishes that “imprisonment will take place in accordance with Danish law and in accordance with Denmark’s international obligations”. It will have an initial duration of five years, with the possibility of an extension for another five. Likewise, a payment of €15 million will be made each year, plus €5 million to renovate the prison and adapt it to Danish regulations.
Barely 24 hours after the text was published, the Danish government announced that it would provide “a solid commitment to development [in Kosovo] focused on a green transition and human rights”, with an annual contribution of 45 million Danish kroner (about €6 million) from Denmark’s foreign aid budget. The government denied that there was any relationship between the two agreements.
‘Kosovo’s prisons are already overcrowded’
Initially, the first prisoners to be deported to Kosovo were due to be sent last year, but these plans have been postponed several times. According to the new cooperation agreement, the refurbished prison will not be ready until 2027. “It almost looks like a scam,” the Denmark Democrats and the Liberal Alliance said last spring, when Kosovo’s Parliament had not yet voted to approve giving up prison places. The agreement was ratified shortly afterwards, but to date – four years after the scheme was first mooted and many millions of Danish kroner had already been sent to Pristina – it has not begun to be implemented.
Fatmire Haliti, lawyer and programme director of the Kosovan Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (KRCT), questions the fact that the population in Kosovo has not been informed “and there has been no debate on the issue”. She stresses that “from the beginning” of the government negotiations, “human rights organisations and independent monitoring bodies have not been consulted”. Furthermore, “Kosovo’s prisons are already overcrowded,” continues Haliti, who warns that, in fact, Gnjilane prison currently holds more than 200 inmates, so the Danish plans for the prison are also distorting Kosovo’s prison system.
The danger of equating migration with crime
According to Steve Peers, professor of EU Law and Human Rights at Royal Holloway, University of London, it is important to point out that the proposal only applies “partially” to Denmark by virtue of the Danish opt-out clause on asylum, and that the proposed text does not currently clarify which parts will actually apply to Denmark. “However, on the face of it, it seems that this new scheme will apply to non-EU citizens residing illegally and who are not subject to freedom of movement.”
Thus, the conditions that apply to those who are considered a “security risk” can be used “in a discriminatory manner, regardless of whether the person has been previously convicted or not, and it gives deportations a punitive function that goes beyond the principles of criminal law,” says Silvia Carta, of PICUM, a European network of organisations working for legal assistance for undocumented immigrants. She also warns that this new scheme will in fact deprive migrants of basic rights, such as the possibility of appealing a deportation sentence. Silvia Carta remarks that there is “a growing tendency to view migration through a security prism”.
What happens when sentences end?
Several civil society organisations have sounded the alarm about what happens to prisoners once they have served their sentences. “If they can’t return to Denmark and don’t apply for asylum in Kosovo, what will happen when they finish their sentence?” asks Orjana Demaliaj, Director of the Kosovan humanitarian organisation Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). According to the treaty, detainees must be sent to Denmark before being released, unless other agreements come about that allow the person to be sent directly to a third country. But the reality can be much more complex: in particular, there is a grey area for detainees awaiting deportation if the country of origin refuses to cooperate. Practice shows that vulnerable migrants deported from Denmark can end up in precarious situations.
“Kosovo already has detention centres for immigrants without documentation or without a valid asylum application or who have not left the country within two weeks of their application being rejected, but who have not committed a crime,” explains Demaliaj. The centres are not designed for repatriation and “people can be detained there for a year,” he says. After that year, “the doors are simply opened and the authorities claim that the case is resolved without offering any further help”. Many of the migrants will resume their journey along the Balkan route, or will be detained again if they are stopped by the police.
Migrants stuck in limbo
“Without doubt, there will be people from countries such as Iran and Afghanistan who, after serving their sentences in Kosovo, will not be able to return home,” says Therese Rytter, Head of Legal Affairs at DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture. Rytter believes that this will be the case for those who are at significant risk of being tortured in their country of origin. “It is quite possible that these people will end up having to return to Denmark and be sent to the deportation centre at Kærshovedgård, under a tolerated stay regime,” she adds.
The Danish Ministry of Justice have tried to assure the public that the inmates of Gnjilane prison “will not be released in Kosovo”, as the treaty “contemplates the possibility of deporting convicted foreigners directly to their country of origin once they have served their sentence”. It also introduces the obligation for the foreigner to leave Kosovo once the sentence has been served.
However, there will be cases in which, for various reasons, they cannot leave or be deported from Kosovo. Therefore, it may be necessary to return the foreigner to Denmark, either temporarily or permanently. For example, it may be a foreigner who does not want to cooperate with the departure and who cannot be forcibly deported. However, rules have been introduced to ensure that an expelled person can remain in preventive detention in Gnjilane prison if there is a real prospect that he or she can be deported to his or her country of origin.
Mistreatment in Kosovan prisons
DIGNITY, together with UNHCR, the UN and the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), has repeatedly called on Denmark to abandon its prison plans because they violate the principle of non-refoulement, fundamental to international law, which states that people cannot be returned to a country where they risk being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. Furthermore, this also violates the right of detainees to family life.
The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture has documented the physical abuse suffered by prisoners in Kosovo’s prisons. They have also found that the cases are not being effectively investigated. Therefore, “there is a risk that staff who may commit abuses against inmates at Gnjilane prison will not be held accountable for their actions,” says Therese Rytter, who is also vice-president of the CPT.