Meloni holding meeting on resuming Albania transfers

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 23 - Premier Giorgia Meloni is holding a meeting with some of her ministers on Monday on getting the government's controversial scheme to process migrants at Italian-run centres in Albania operational after it was blocked by legal obstacles.
    Italian judges refused to validate the detention of the first two groups of asylum seekers taken to Albania, under an agreement between Rome and Tirana, referring their cases to the European Court of Justice - which had earlier established that an applicant could not go through a fast-track procedure that could lead to their repatriation if their country of provenance was not deemed wholly safe.
    The government has tried to get around this hurdle with a measure listing 19 safe countries for repatriation.
    During Sunday's 'North-South Summit' on European security and defence in Saariselkä, in the Finnish region of Lapland, Meloni said a recent decision by the supreme Court of Cassation showed that the government has the right to say which countries are safe for repatriation.
    "The Cassation has said we are right about safe countries," Meloni said.
    The government is aiming to get the scheme, which has stirred the interest of many other European countries, up and running again in the new year, sources said. (ANSA).