Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s program to screen asylum seekers outside of the European Union borders in Albania has hit another snag.

A Rome court on Monday asked EU judges to weigh in on the detention of sea migrants in Albania, again frustrating the Italian right-wing government's efforts to pursue its flagship plan to crackdown on irregular arrivals.

The Italian government is asserting the right to return people to these countries, and this forms the base of their justification for the controversial Albania scheme. In short, people from these ‘safe’ countries are likely to have their asylum claims rejected,