Italy hails EU safe-country rules as ‘success’ for govt
ROME: Italy’s interior minister on Wednesday called the tightening of asylum rules by the European Union a win for Rome, which had lobbied the bloc for more restrictions on migration.
The European Commission said earlier Wednesday that it was proposing to designate Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia, Colombia, India, Morocco and Kosovo as “safe countries”.
That designation means it will be harder for citizens from those countries to claim asylum within the European Union. The move was hailed by Rome, “which has always worked both at a bilateral and multilateral level to obtain the revision of the regulation”, said interior minister Matteo Piantedosi, calling the addition of the countries “a success for the Italian government”.
Italy’s hard-right government of Giorgia Meloni has vowed to cut irregular migration, but a flagship policy to operate migrant centres in Albania has hit a series of legal roadblocks and delays.
Italian judges have repeatedly refused to sign off on the detention in Albania of migrants intercepted by Italian authorities at sea, ordering them to be transferred to Italy instead. Italy has hoped that migrants from safe countries could be sent to the Albanian centres before being repatriated, but legal wrangling over which countries were considered “safe” had held up the scheme.
The government twice modified its safe list but Italian courts had referred legal questions to the European Court of Justice, which has yet to weigh in. Piantedosi said the EU’s proposed regulation allows for fast-track border procedures “such as those provided in Albania” to potential asylum seekers from countries whose right-of-asylum rate is less than 20 per cent.
