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By Angelo Amante
ROME (Reuters) - Italy is taking a first group of migrants to Albania aboard a navy ship, a source close to the matter said on Monday, activating a controversial plan to process thousands of asylum-seekers abroad.
Giorgia Meloni's government has built two reception centres in Albania, the first such deal involving a European Union nation diverting migrants to a non-EU country in an effort to deter irregular arrivals.
The source, who asked not to be named, said the Libra ship had departed from near the island of Lampedusa with an unspecified number of migrants who were recently rescued at sea.
He said they were all males from a list of countries that were deemed safe by Italy and who will be subject to accelerated border controls.
At present there are 21 safe countries on the Italian list, recently increased from 15, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Ivory Coast and Tunisia. Last year, 56,588 migrants arrived in Italy from those four nations alone.
Under the terms of the Albania accord, up to 36,000 migrants can be dispatched to the Balkan nation each year, so long as they come from the list of safe countries, which severely limits the possibility of them obtaining asylum.
However, a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued earlier this month may throw a spanner in the works, experts say, as it limits the definition of what might be considered a safe country outside the EU.
Ruling on a separate case involving the Czech Republic, the Court said a country outside the bloc cannot be declared safe unless its entire territory is deemed free of danger.
"The court is telling governments that they can make their own lists of safe countries, but they are wrong if they include nations that have unsafe areas," said Matteo Villa, a senior research fellow with the ISPI think-tank.
"If the ruling were applied (here), hardly anybody could be sent (to Albania)," he said, adding that the sentence would endanger Rome's plans only if Italian judges used it to reject initial requests to send migrants to Albania.
The Italian interior ministry declined to comment on the ECJ ruling.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Gareth Jones)
