Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni hopes to have saved her plan to process migrants entering the country in Albania after her cabinet approved a new decree to appease the courts.
Her initial plans were rejected by judges, but at a special meeting in Rome on Monday, Meloni’s three-party right-wing coalition agreed to an amended settlement that will determine which homelands can legally be classified as safe countries of origin in the future.
Nigeria, Cameroon and Colombia have since been removed from the list of safe countries, but Egypt and Bangladesh are still on it, despite the court ruling that migrants cannot be sent back there.
The list should be updated regularly. Experts debate whether the new decree is sufficient to address the judiciary’s concerns.
Meloni believes that deporting migrants who do not claim asylum back to their home countries after being processed in Albania is the only way to stem the numbers of migrants from Africa and beyond.
Two camps in Albania have already opened but remain empty as Italy tries to become the first EU country to process migrants outside the bloc.
The newspaper La Repubblica reported that in the future the list of safe countries of origin would be drawn up by Meloni’s office and not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There was no official confirmation.
An Italian court had previously ruled that Bangladesh and Egypt could not be considered safe for returning citizens, following a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
These types of lists are drawn up individually by the member states of the European Union, and not for the bloc as a whole. Italy’s new list now includes 18 countries.
The government has indicated that it plans to appeal the ruling of the court responsible for deciding immigration issues and will take the case to the highest level if necessary.
Meloni hopes that up to 36,000 asylum applications per year can be processed in Albania.
