Safe countries for migrants:the government responds with a decree after the Albania case

After the non-validation of the detention of 12 migrants from Egypt and Bangladesh, the list of safe countries is defined by law.

• The government intervenes with a decree after the failure to detain migrants in centers in Albania.
• From now on the list of safe countries will be established by law, and subject to change once a year.
• More attacks on the judiciary:“Perhaps the ruling of the EU Court of Justice has not been well understood”.

The list of countries considered safe by Italy, which determines who has the right to apply for protection and who must be repatriated, will from now on be determined by law, and not simply through a ministerial decree of the Farnesina as it was until now.It is the response of the Italian government to the decision of the TRibunal of Rome, which the other day had not validated the detention of 12 migrants, from Bangladesh and Egypt, in the centers built in Albania.The Court of Rome had established, applying the ruling 406/22 of the European Court of Justice, that Bangladesh and Egypt could not be considered completely safe countries for certain categories of people or due to particular situations in some of their regions.

Bangladesh and Egypt remain "safe countries"

With a decree law, which will now have to be converted into law by Parliament, the government has established that there are 19 countries of emigration to be considered safe:Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Morocco, Montenegro, Peru, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.Compared to the previous list, there are still Bangladesh and Egypt.However, they are missing Cameroon, Colombia and Nigeria because, according to the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio, "these countries do not guarantee territorial continuity":essentially, some parts of these countries are beyond the control of the central government.

By elevating the list of safe countries to the status of law "we hope to avoid further discussions on its validity, given that it will be subject to annual review" Justice Minister Carlo Nordio explained in a press conference.In fact, European rules remain superior to national ones, but the government hopes that from now on it will be more complicated for a judge not to validate detentions, unless the case is referred to the Constitutional Court with a decidedly longer timeframe. .In reality, perhaps less lightly, it will still be possible for a judge to order non-validation.It should then come into force by June 2026 the new European legislation which will standardize the list of safe countries, today different for each of the 27 member states, on the basis of the new Migration and asylum pact.  

The other version of the EU Court ruling

Nordio himself, however, returned to criticize the judiciary, as he has already done in recent days, stating that the ruling of the EU Court of Justice "has perhaps not been well understood, because it was written in French and very complex:in addition to reiterating the principle that it is the state's task to define the concept of a safe state, the Court says that judges must give an exhaustive and complete explanation of the specific case for which every single individual in that country is not considered safe.Which the Court of Rome did not do."In practice, the Court of Rome should have justified in a very short time the dangers faced at home by each of the 12 citizens of Bangladesh and Egypt, on the basis of the life paths of each of them, when it usually takes months to thoroughly investigate, with interviews and other procedures, the individual's condition.

Assuming that the nationalities are really those:Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi underlined that the Bangladeshis and Egyptians brought to Albania "are self-styled, of uncertain citizenship:their origin is declared by themselves, and there is no proof, no document that attests to it."At this point, however, it is all the more impossible for the Court to reconstruct the lives of each of them in such a short time and in such a credible way.The ministers effectively confirmed the estimated cost of the outward and (soon) return trip to Albania of the Navy ship with the 16 migrants on board, which later became 12: approximately 800 million euros.But Piantedosi replied to those who consider the undertaking a waste of public money that "then we will give you an account of it how much does the reception system cost us (which however should be considered an investment rather than an expense, ed.) and the transfers of migrants on Italian territory" after the landings, i.e. 1.78 billion euros per year”.