On August 1st, the Court of Justice of the European Union released, anticipating it with a statement, the contents of its ruling regarding the migrant centers built by Italy in Albania. In essence, to be brief, a given country can be considered a "safe country of origin" only if it guarantees an adequate level of protection to its entire population and throughout its territory. This does not, however, call into question the possibility of repatriating migrants denied international protection .

This is the golden rule, at least until the entry into force of the new European Regulation on Asylum Procedures, expected, it would seem, for next June 12, 2026. Beyond the surprise (justified or not, of little importance) expressed by the Italian Government at the contents of the decision in and of itself, which would seem to weaken the political direction followed thus far on the matter, the value of the ruling would appear to be far more intense and far-reaching, as it would appear to reflect more significant values, concerning the founding reasons of Europeanism and the European Project as a whole.

To put it differently, and to update the reflection by bringing it into line with the current vicissitudes concerning the management of the pandemic period, the (failure) to forcefully influence the international geopolitical context through strong diplomatic action for the "peaceful" resolution of ongoing conflicts, the weakness that emerged in the economic negotiations recently discussed on the subject of tariffs between the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen and the President of the United States of America Donald Trump, represent otherwise not negligible signs of a transnational institutional fragility that it is time to address, and overcome , through the shared reconstruction of a legal-political-economic architecture of the European Union suitable for reflecting a single and unitary institution that is finally able to create a "concrete synthesis" of the twenty-seven Member States to become a truly founding unity for present and future projects, fully respecting mutual differences.

Perhaps, in today's European Union, it would be useful to rethink the mechanisms underlying the Organization's decision-making processes in order to fully reflect and share the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality that should guide the actions of the European Institution as a whole. Well, to stay on topic. In the current scenario, the arrival of migrants and asylum seekers is nothing new and, indeed, constitutes a phenomenon that goes far beyond the European geographical paradigm. Yet, it seems to emerge as one of many critical points that, over time, has challenged the European Union's ability to find concrete responses to citizens' concerns (real and/or perceived as such), precisely when the principle of solidarity between Member States has had to be implemented in concrete and functional terms to achieve a true sharing of duties.

This would have allowed, with good likelihood, and would allow today, a more orderly and controlled management of the phenomenon. The global vicissitudes of recent years seem to have revealed (at least this is the impression one gets) that individual national "administrations" alone appear inadequate when faced with the complexity of managing globalization. This awareness should now underpin the need to strengthen the supranational institution of reference. It is likely that, in the redefinition of the new international order resulting from the resolution of ongoing conflicts, it could be burdensome and unresolved for national governments to think in terms of internal borders, thus renouncing, in many areas, including migration policies, the fair distribution of the burdens that membership in the European Union entails. Europe, considered as a whole, is the only effective response to the demands of international contexts, and in this sense, respect for the values it reflects on a social and humanitarian level represents the best response, also for the protection of national interests.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore

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