Italy will not take back migrants from Germany for the foreseeable future despite new EU rules, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Saturday.
Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, justified the position by pointing to German aid organizations operating ships in the Mediterranean that pick up refugees and bring them to Italy, from where some travel on to Germany.
The governments in Rome and Berlin are at odds over how to handle such so-called secondary migrants.
Salvini, who serves as transport minister in the right-wing three-party coalition of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, said at a party meeting in the northern Italian city of Trento: "Germany has no right to send us back even a single illegal immigrant as long as German NGO ships are operating in the Mediterranean to bring thousands of illegal immigrants ashore in Italy and Europe."
The League leader had previously taken an extremely hard line against boat migrants and aid organizations during an earlier stint as interior minister.
A new EU asylum and migration pact has been in force since mid-June. On that basis, Germany and other countries want to return migrants who entered the EU via the Italian coast and subsequently moved on. The background is what is known as the Dublin Regulation, under which every migrant must apply for asylum in the first EU country they entered.
Despite this, Rome has not taken back a single migrant from Germany since the new pact came into force.
Even before that, Italy had rejected around 80,000 return requests from other countries since 2023, according to official figures. The stated reason is that the national reception system is completely overwhelmed.
According to Italian media reports, the dispute between Rome and Berlin is expected to prompt talks between interior ministers Matteo Piantedosi and Alexander Dobrindt in the near future.