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ROME/BRUSSELS: Europe’s top court on Friday questioned the legitimacy of Italy’s “safe countries” list, which is used to send migrants to Albania and fast-track their asylum claims, in a fresh blow to a key plank of the government’s migration policy.

Conservative  Giorgia Meloni’s office, in a statement, called the court ruling “surprising” and said it “weakens policies to combat mass illegal immigration and defend national borders.”
Dario Belluccio, a lawyer who represented one of the Bangladeshi asylum-seekers in the specific case brought before the European Court of Justice, said the Albanian migrant camps scheme had effectively been killed off.

“It will not be possible to continue with what the Italian government had envisioned before this decision ... Technically, it seems to me that the government’s approach has been completely dismantled,” he told Reuters.
Meloni had presented the offshoring of asylum-seekers to camps built in Albania as a cornerstone of her tough approach to immigration, and other European countries had looked to the idea as a possible model.
However, the scheme stumbled on legal opposition almost as soon as it was launched last year, with Italian courts ordering the return to Italy of migrants picked up at sea and taken to Albania, citing issues with EU law.
In a long-awaited judgment, the Luxembourg-based ECJ ruled that Italy is authorized to fast-track asylum rejections for nationals from countries on a “safe” list — a principle at the heart of the Albania scheme.
It also stated that Italy is free to decide which countries are “safe,” but warned that such a designation should meet strict legal standards and allow applicants and courts to access and challenge the supporting evidence.
In its statement, the ECJ said a Rome court had turned to EU judges, citing the impossibility of accessing such information and thus preventing it from “challenging and reviewing the lawfulness of such a presumption of safety.”
The ECJ also stated that a country may not be classified as “safe” if it fails to provide adequate protection to its entire population, effectively agreeing with Italian judges who had raised this issue last year.
Meloni’s office complained that the EU judgment effectively allows national judges to dictate policy on migration, “further reducing the already limited” capacity of parliament and government to take decisions on the matter.
“This is a development that should concern everybody,” it said.
The case raised before the ECJ involved two Bangladeshi nationals who were rescued at sea by Italian authorities and taken to Albania, where their asylum claims were rejected based on Italy’s classification of Bangladesh as a “safe” country.
The detention facilities Italy set up in Albania have been empty for months, due to judicial obstacles. Last week, a report found that their construction cost was seven times more than that of an equivalent center in Italy.
Though the Albanian scheme is stuck in legal limbo, Italy’s overall effort to curb undocumented migration by sea has been more successful. 
There have been 36,557 such migrant arrivals to date, slightly up from the same period in 2024, but far below the 89,165 recorded over the same time span in 2023.

DHAKA, KARACHI, AHMEDABAD: Bangladesh has negotiated a 20 percent tariff on exports to the US, down from the 37 percent initially proposed by US President Donald Trump, bringing relief to exporters in the world’s second-largest garment supplier.
The new rate is in line with those offered to other major apparel-exporting countries such as Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Pakistan and Indonesia. India, which failed to reach a comprehensive agreement with Washington, will face a steeper 25 percent tariff.
Trump put steep tariffs on exports from dozens of trading partners, including Canada, Brazil, India and Taiwan, ahead of a Friday trade deal deadline.

The outcome secured by Bangladesh — home to a $40 billion apparel export sector — reflects careful negotiation, said Khalilur Rahman, national security adviser and lead negotiator.
“Protecting our apparel industry was a top priority, but we also focused our purchase commitments on US agricultural products. This supports our food security goals and fosters goodwill with US farming states,” Rahman said. Muhammad Yunus, the head of the country’s interim government, called it a “decisive diplomatic victory.”
The readymade garments sector is the backbone of Bangladesh’s economy, accounting for more than 80 percent of total export earnings, employing about 4 million workers, and contributing about 10 percent to gross domestic product.
The prospect of higher US tariffs has rattled Bangladesh’s ready-made garments industry, which fears losing competitiveness in one of its largest markets.
“While the 20 percent tariff will cause some short-term pain, Bangladesh remains better positioned than many of its competitors,” said Mohiuddin Rubel, additional managing director at Denim Expert Ltd, which makes jeans and other items for brands including H&M.
Exporters in neighboring India said the relatively higher tariffs levied would hurt the country’s textile exports, as its competitors like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia got lower tariffs.
“We are hoping that the tariffs will be rationalized. We will have to recalibrate our strategies depending on the final tariff imposed, said Chintan Thakker, chairman of industry body ASSOCHAM in the state of Gujarat, a major apparel exporter.

’Devil will be in the details’
Pakistan, which exported about $4.1 billion worth of apparel to the US in the 2024 fiscal year, secured a tariff rate of 19 percent, but industry figures were cautious about the immediate impact.
“Considering India’s lower production costs and the likelihood of it negotiating reduced tariffs in the near term, Pakistan is unlikely to either gain or lose a meaningful share in the apparel segment,” Musadaq Zulqarnain, founder and chair of Interloop Limited — a leading Pakistani exporter.
“If the current reciprocal tariff structure holds, significant investment is likely to flow into DR-CAFTA countries and Egypt,” he said, referring to a trade agreement between the US and a group of Caribbean and Central American countries.
Elsewhere in South Asia, Sri Lanka also secured a 20 percent tariff rate from the US, which accounted for 40 percent of its apparel exports of $4.8 billion last year.
“The devil will be in the details as there are questions over issues such as trans-shipment, but overall it’s mostly good,” Yohan Lawrence, secretary general of the Joint Apparel Associations Forum, a Sri Lankan industry body, told Reuters.