The European Union has adopted Italy’s migrant strategy in an “epochal” move, the co-chair of Permier Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) caucus, Nicola Procaccini, said after the European Parliament approved a new list of safe countries to return migrants as well as offshore processing hubs like Rome’s in Albania.

“Today in Brussels, the Meloni government’s Italian strategy has become the European strategy,” said Procaccini, a leading member of Meloni’s right-wing Borthers of Italy (FdI) party.

“Today the final hurdle has been overcome.

“In a few hours, the new pact on migration will come into force, and it will be completely different, because finally, the phenomenon of immigration is not being endured, but managed.

“The fact that the applications of illegal migrants who departed from or passed through a safe third country will be deemed inadmissible is a crucial factor, as you will understand, because it means, for example, that anyone passing through Tunisia or Egypt will automatically have their application declared inadmissible.

“This is, in my opinion, a momentous step,” Procaccini said.