ROME: Europe’s top court on Friday questioned the legitimacy of the “safe countries” list Italy uses 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 Prime Minister 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. “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 said.

Meloni had presented the offshoring of asylum-seekers to camps built in Albania as a cornerstone of her tough approach to immigration.

Published in Dawn, Aug 2nd, 2025