The Italian government is asserting the right to return people to these countries, and this forms the base of their justification for the controversial Albania scheme. In short, people from these ‘safe’ countries are likely to have their asylum claims rejected,

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Right-wing League party and the deputy prime minister, accused the Rome court of issuing politically motivated decisions. He said the ruling was “another political sentence, not against the government, but against Italians and their safety”. He has previously called judges “communists”.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s program to screen asylum seekers outside of the European Union borders in Albania has hit another snag.