Matteo
Zamboni (human rights lawyer working between Italy and the UK. He is a
partner to the Immigration Law and Policy clinic of Goldsmiths, University of
London)

 

Photo credit: Matteo
Zamboni – The Grand Chamber of the CJEU in Luxembourg before the hearing of 25
February 2025

  

Introduction

 

On
10 April 2025, Jean Richard de la Tour, Advocate General (AG) at the Court of
Justice of the European Union (CJEU), delivered his conclusions
in joined cases C‑758/24 [Alace] and C‑759/24 [Canpelli], regarding the
implementation of the Italy-Albania
Protocol on asylum and return procedures, which was the subject of my
previous blog.

 

In
a nutshell, as stated in the press
release from the Court, the AG argued that (i) ‘a Member State may
designate safe countries of origin by a legislative act’; (ii) a Member State
‘must disclose, for the purpose of judicial review, the sources of information
upon which that designation is based’; (iii) ‘[a] Member State may […] under
certain conditions, grant a third country the status of safe country of origin,
while identifying limited categories of persons likely to be at risk of
persecution or serious harm in that country’.

 

This post tries to dig a little
bit deeper in the opinion in order to highlight its nuances, strengths, and
criticalities.

 

Context

 

Some background information helps
put the opinion into context.

 

The
opinion was published on the same day that the Italian military vessel Libra
(already infamous
for not taking action when called to the rescue of the victims of the massive
shipwreck of 11 October 2013) was sailing toward the centres in Albania to
bring 40 individuals whose claims for international protection had been
rejected by the Italian authorities. According to the information
available, these people ‘will be held in [the] Italian-run detention
centres until they are repatriated to their home countries’. In fact, it was
reported that, ‘facing criticism from the opposition over the legal confusion,
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s conservative coalition […] decided to use [one
of the two detention centres built in Albania, the one in Gjader] as a staging
post for people whose asylum bids have already been turned down’. More
precisely, by means of decree-law
no 37 of 28 March 2025 the Italian government established that one of the
two centres built in Albania  will
temporarily be turned into a repatriation hub – in Italian, ‘Centri
di permanenza per i rimpatri’, abbreviated CPR; that is to say, centres to
detain undocumented migrants whose claims to international protection had been
rejected with a final decision and who are awaiting deportation to their
countries of origin.

 

Interestingly,
the amendment enacted by the Italian government mirrors the proposal
of the EU Commission for a Common European System for Returns, which, amid criticism
from human rights organisations, ‘endorsed the idea of “return hubs” located
outside the European Union’. Yet, according to sources
in the press, the plan is only temporary. In fact, ‘the government still
hopes to revert to its original plan and is waiting on a ruling from the
European Union’s Court of Justice which could compel Italian judges to process
new asylum seekers dispatched to Albania’.

 

Moreover,
on 16 April 2025 the EU Commission published a proposal
for amendments to regulation
2024/1348 (the asylum procedures Regulation, forming part of the asylum
pact) touching precisely on the matter of the designation of safe countries of
origin (SCOs). Notably, the Commission highlighted that ‘Regulation 2024/1348
[…] for the first time provides for the possibility to designate safe countries
of origin at Union level’ and informed that ‘the EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA)
had been asked to accelerate its analysis […] with a view to drawing up an EU
list [of SOCs]’.

 

The
proposal is of interest for the case under review for at least three main reasons: