The European Union has published a list of seven countries it considers "safe", in a bid to speed up migrant returns by making it harder for citizens of those nations to claim asylum in the bloc.
The European Commission said it was proposing to designate Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco and Tunisia as "safe countries of origin".
The move is set to allow EU governments to process asylum applications filed from citizens of those countries more quickly - by introducing a presumption that such applications lack merit.
"Many member states are facing a significant backlog of asylum applications, so anything we can do now to support faster asylum decisions is essential," said Magnus Brunner, the EU's commissioner for migration.
EU candidate countries would also in principle meet the criteria to be designated as safe countries, exceptions being when they are hit by a conflict, the commission said.
The EU had already presented a similar list in 2015 but the plan was abandoned due to heated debates over whether or not to include Turkey.
The bloc has been under pressure to clamp down on irregular arrivals and facilitate deportations, following a souring of public opinion on migration that has fuelled hard-right electoral gains in several countries.
EU leaders called in October for urgent new legislation to increase and speed up returns and for the commission to assess "innovative" ways to counter irregular migration.
In response, last month the commission unveiled a planned reform of the 27-nation bloc's return system, which opened the way for member states to set up migrant return centres outside the EU.
Currently less than 20% of people ordered to leave the bloc are returned to their country of origin, according to EU data.
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Italy's interior minister said the new rules are a win for the Italian government, which lobbied for more restrictions on migration.
Matteo Piantedosi said Italy had "always worked both at a bilateral and multilateral level to obtain the revision of the regulation", calling the addition of the countries "a success for the Italian government".
Italy's hard-right government of Giorgia Meloni has vowed to cut irregular migration, but a flagship policy to operate migrant centres in Albania has hit a series of legal roadblocks and delays.
Italian judges have repeatedly refused to sign off on the detention in Albania of migrants intercepted by Italian authorities at sea, ordering them to be transferred to Italy instead.
Italy has hoped that migrants from safe countries could be sent to the Albanian centres before being repatriated, but legal wrangling over which countries were considered "safe" had held up the scheme.
The government twice modified its safe list but Italian courts had referred legal questions to the European Court of Justice, which has yet to weigh in.
Mr Piantedosi said the EU's proposed regulation allows for fast-track border procedures "such as those provided in Albania" to potential asylum seekers from countries whose right-of-asylum rate is less than 20%.
