Migrants, the point is the supremacy of EU law over national law

A gamble or an underestimate? It is legitimate to ask the question after the widely foreseeable mess created around the repatriation centre opened by the Italian government in Albania with a long studied media hype. Because if the judges of the Court of Rome did not validate the detention of the 12 (twelve!) migrants from Egypt and Bangladesh, they did so in compliance with the EU Court of Justice's ruling of 4 October last, which states that migrants from unsafe countries cannot be repatriated. This ruling came as a cold shower on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's head just as she was striving to export the 'Albania model' to Brussels. Moreover, she has received the interest of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (difficult to say whether genuine or instrumental in view of the Europarliamentary vote on her team), who in recent days has invited the 27 to "explore the idea of developing repatriation hubs outside the EU".

The entire government, not only Lega League leader Matteo Salvini on trial in Palermo on charges of kidnapping in the Open Arms NGO case, but also the usually cautious Justice Minister Carlo Nordio, is now crying conspiracy by the politicised judiciary (the famous 'toghe rosse' of Belusconi's memory) against the government's legitimate political decisions. The judiciary cannot determine which countries are safe and which are not, is the argument. "We will intervene with legislative measures,' Nordio reiterates. 'It cannot be the judiciary that defines a state as more or less safe, these decisions risk creating diplomatic incidents: defining a friendly country like Morocco as unsafe can create problems. And I would add that if we considered that countries with rules that we have repudiated, such as the death penalty, are not safe, then the United States would not be a safe country either. These are matters of high politics that should not and will not be left to the judiciary'.

But can the announced intervention be decisive in the direction desired by the government? 'I don't know how they will come out of this,' says constitutionalist rights expert Salvatore Curreri. Because the point,' he explains, 'is not the decision of the Court of Rome, the point is the supremacy of European law over national law, a supremacy accepted by our country with the act of accession to the European Union and moreover established in clear letters by our Constitution also on the subject of immigration: 'The legal status of the foreigner is regulated by law in accordance with the rules and the international treaties,' Article 10 states. It is no coincidence that in the last legislature (2018) Fratelli d'Italia had submitted a proposal to amend Articles 11 and 117 of the Constitution, an article on which the supremacy of European law over national law is based ('The rules of the Treaties and acts of the European Union are applicable on equal terms and only insofar as they are compatible with the principles of democracy and subsidiarity, as well as with other principles of the Italian Constitution', read Article 11 rewritten at the time by Meloni).

In short, the point is not the red togas but the cession of sovereignty to the European Union that all member states have accepted and signed up to. PD secretary Elly Schlein is right to point out that "to get around the rulings of the EU Court of Justice they would have to leave the Union... I don't think they want to propose this, although it wouldn't be the first time. So, gamble or underestimation? Certainly there is an element of chance, in the sense that the government has, so to speak, tried, hoping for a more lenient attitude from the judiciary. But there is certainly an all-political aspect that has to do with that narrative on the sensitive issue of migrants aimed above all at reinforcing the loyalty of that segment of the electorate that wants an iron fist and is ready to pour accusations of sabotage on the judiciary and the left. "At least the premier tried and only the judiciary in cahoots with the lax opposition prevented her from realising her plan. Regardless of the regulations that will be passed by the next BoD, in short, the narrative is destined to continue.