Italy's migrant measures such as its
controversial deal with Albania to process migrants in
Italian.-run centres in the Balkan country must comply with EU
law, a European Commission spokesman said Monday.
The first 12 migrants to be taken to Albania were sent back to
Italy after a Rome court upheld a European Court of Justice
ruling that their home countries, Egypt and Bangladesh, were not
safe - a blow to the scheme which Premier Giorgia Meloni has
vowed to overcome by drafting a list of safe countries that is
stronger in legal terms and which could not be challenged by the
EU court.
The spokesman said the EC was working on a lsit of safe
countries too.
"We are aware of the ruling in Italy and we are in contact with
the Italian authorities: at the moment there is no European list
of safe third countries, the member states have national lists,
but it is expected that we will work on it", said the spokesman.
Returning to the Rome-Tirana Protocol, the spokesperson
explained that "national law is applied, but also standards
related to international protection that are provided by EU law.
"We have also said that all these measures must be fully
compliant with Community law and must not weaken it".
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