Meloni slams EU Court over asylum ruling, warns of political power grab
Italian PM clashes with European judges over migrant repatriation policy.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sharply criticized a new ruling from the EU’s top court, accusing European judges of overstepping their authority after the decision made it harder for member states to reject asylum-seekers, News.Az reports, citing Politico.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Friday that EU countries can only designate non-EU nations as "safe" for repatriation if they provide clear, public justification — and only if the entire population of the country is protected across all regions.
Meloni denounced the decision as both "surprising" and a “power grab” by the judiciary.
"Once again, the judiciary — this time at the European level — claims spaces that do not belong to it, in the face of responsibilities that are political," she said.
The ruling could have major implications for Italy’s controversial “Albania model,” a migration deal signed in 2023 that allows Italy to detain and process up to 30,000 asylum-seekers annually at facilities built in Albania.
The model has faced repeated legal challenges. Italian judges have previously blocked the detention of several migrant groups under the scheme, citing earlier CJEU rulings. At the heart of the dispute is whether countries like Bangladesh and Egypt — listed by Italy as “safe” for repatriation — truly meet EU legal criteria across their entire territory.
Friday's judgment stemmed from a case brought by two Bangladeshi nationals who were rescued at sea and sent to a detention center in Albania. They challenged the rejection of their asylum claims, arguing Bangladesh was wrongly included on Italy’s safe country list.
In response to earlier setbacks, the Italian government issued a decree in December listing 19 “safe” countries for deportation purposes. However, the decree was once again questioned in court, and the case was referred to the CJEU — reigniting the debate over national sovereignty versus EU law.
Meloni, a longtime critic of Italy’s judiciary, made it clear the government will not back down:
“We will explore all possible technical and legal avenues to defend our migration policy,” she vowed.
The ruling comes just months ahead of the EU Migration Pact’s full implementation — leaving Italy racing against the clock to keep its flagship migration model intact.
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