ROME/BRUSSELS: Europe’s top court on Friday questioned the legitimacy of Italy’s “safe countries” list, which is used to send migrants to Albania and fast-track their asylum claims, in a fresh blow to a key plank of the government’s migration policy.
Conservative Giorgia Meloni’s office, in a statement, called the court ruling “surprising” and said it “weakens policies to combat mass illegal immigration and defend national borders.”
Dario Belluccio, a lawyer who represented one of the Bangladeshi asylum-seekers in the specific case brought before the European Court of Justice, said the Albanian migrant camps scheme had effectively been killed off.
The detention facilities Italy set up in Albania have been empty for months, due to judicial obstacles.
“It will not be possible to continue with what the Italian government had envisioned before this decision ... Technically, it seems to me that the government’s approach has been completely dismantled,” he told Reuters.
