'Was Nazi Germany safe country?' - Bologna court

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 29 - The Bologna court that referred a new government decree listing safe countries for repatriation to the European Court of Justice on Tuesday questioned the principle according to which a nation in which the majority of the population lives in security can be described as safe, given that the international protection system is aimed in particular at protecting minorities, citing the paradox of Nazi Germany.
    Nazi Germany was extremely safe for the great majority of the German population, with the exception of Jews, homosexuals, members of the political opposition and Roma people, it said.
    The Bologna court referred to the European Court of Justice the decree to ask which parameter should be used when determining safety and whether the principle of the primacy of EU law should prevail if a conflict arises with Italian legislation.
    The legal questions were issued in relation to an appeal presented by an asylum seeker from Bangladesh against the territorial commission for the recognition of international protection.
    And the court explicitly referred to Bangladesh, which the new decree lists as a safe country, recalling that international protection is granted to Lgbtqi+ community members, victims of gender violence, ethnic and religious minorities and people forcibly displaced by weather-related events.
    The spirit of the decree, suggested the court, would have the nature of a "political act, determined by the superior needs of the government related to migration and the defence of borders, regardless of the information and the judgement expressed by members of ministerial offices regarding the security conditions of the designated country".
    The decree greenlighted by the government on October 21 listing 19 countries as safe said Italian courts cannot rule against it on the basis of an October 4 European Court of Justice sentence based on which Rome judges had nixed the detention of a group of migrants at a new Italian-run centre in Albania.
    The 19 newly approved safe countries whose status is bolstered by the new 'primary' legislation, which was issued three days after the Rome court's ruling, are: Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Morocco, Montenegro, Peru, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.
    (ANSA).