"49 foreign citizens have boarded the Cassiopea boat for transfer to the Albanian centres where the reception, detention and evaluation procedures for individual cases will begin," the ministry said in a statement.
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni signed a deal with her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, in November 2023 to open two Italian-run centres in Albania to process migrants rescued by Italian authorities in the Central Mediterranean.
The centres became operational in October but judges ruled against the detention of the first two groups of men transferred there, citing a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
Like many other EU countries, Italy has a list of so-called ‘safe countries’ from which asylum seekers can have their applications fast-tracked.
Only migrants from those safe countries are eligible to be taken to the Albanian centres.
But the judges who blocked the first transfer of migrants cited an ECJ ruling stating that European Union states can only designate entire countries as safe, not parts of countries.
Italy's list included some countries with unsafe areas.
In response, Meloni's government passed a law reducing its list of safe countries from 22 to 19, insisting all parts of those nations were safe.
But judges then ruled against a second group of transferred migrants, saying they wanted clarification from the ECJ. An ECJ hearing has been provisionally scheduled for February, according to Italian media.
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