An Italian court has dealt a major blow to Giorgia Meloni’s multi-million euro plan to send migrants to an offshore camp in Albania by ruling that they cannot remain there and must all be brought back to Italy.

The first group of 16 Egyptian and Bangladeshi men arrived at the facilities in northern Albania on Wednesday at the start of what had been hailed as an innovative new way of dealing with Europe’s illegal migration crisis. The model was being closely watched by other European countries, including Britain.

The 16 men were rescued in the central Mediterranean this month but instead of being shipped to Italian shores, as has happened with tens of thousands of migrants and refugees, they were transported to the Adriatic coast of Albania in an Italian navy ship.