Overview
- Matteo Salvini announced on Saturday that Italy will, for the time being, refuse to accept migrants Germany seeks to return under the new EU asylum rules.
- Salvini justified the decision by accusing German rescue NGOs of picking up people at sea and bringing them to Italy, which he says invalidates German take‑back requests.
- The EU Asylum and Migration Pact that took effect in mid‑June is meant to let countries return people to the first EU country they entered, but Rome has not returned a single migrant to Germany since the rules began.
- Italian officials point to a national reception system at full capacity and note that Rome has rejected roughly 80,000 take‑back requests since 2023, a practice now colliding with the new pact.
- The standoff has raised diplomatic tensions with Berlin and other affected states and could prompt talks between interior ministers Matteo Piantedosi and Alexander Dobrindt while testing how the EU enforces Dublin‑style returns.