Italy rejects all 12 asylum transfers

Between 12 June and 7 July, eight EU member states asked Italy to accept asylum seekers under Europe's new migration rules. Italy refused every one of the 12 requested transfers (2eu.brussels, Visaverge). Rome has blocked incoming transfers since December 2022, except for family cases involving unaccompanied minors. The European Commission's first check on how the new rules are working, published 16 July, found no sign the suspension had ended (Commission assessment). The score from the Pact's earliest enforcement test: EU law assigns responsibility, but it cannot make a government open its doors.

Rome's Defence Looks Weak on Paper

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi offers two arguments. First, he claims old asylum cases for people who reached Italy before 12 June were "zeroed out" through deals with Germany and France in late 2025 (Il Sole 24 Ore). Second, Germany should offset its transfer requests against the roughly 2,200 migrants that German-flagged NGO rescue ships delivered to Italian ports this year (Il Foglio).

Both arguments have legal problems. No public text of any bilateral deal erasing old cases appears in parliamentary records, Council registers, or Commission documents. The Commission's assessment discusses Italy's refusals without mentioning any such waiver (Commission assessment). EU asylum regulations are directly applicable law: two interior ministries cannot privately switch them off (AMMR).

What likely happened is simpler. Under the old Dublin III rules (the regulation that assigned asylum responsibility before the Pact), Germany had six months to physically transfer someone after Italy accepted. Miss that window and responsibility shifted automatically to Germany. The EU's Court of Justice confirmed this principle in its Shiri ruling (Dublin III, CJEU Shiri). Rome's claimed "reset" looks like expired deadlines repackaged as diplomacy.

The Clock Is the Only Enforcement Tool

The new Pact, formally the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, tries to close the gap between decisions on paper and actual transfers. Take-back procedures are more automatic. The country where a person first entered the EU stays responsible for 20 months instead of 12 (AMMR, Verfassungsblog).

But the Italy standoff exposes what the Pact did not fix: any way to force compliance. The authority chain runs like this. A member state like Germany requests a transfer. Italy must either accept or propose an alternative. The Commission can assess compliance, publish findings, and ultimately open infringement proceedings (its tool for forcing countries to follow EU law). Courts can interpret deadlines. Only Italian authorities can actually put someone on a plane.

Germany's own numbers show how badly this chain already performed. In 2024, Germany filed 74,583 Dublin transfer requests across the EU, received 44,431 acceptances, and completed just 5,827 actual transfers, according to Brussels Signal. Roughly one acceptance in eight led to someone moving.

Selective, Not Incapable

One detail undercuts Rome's position. According to NZZ, Italy accepted 51 Swiss take-back requests after 12 June. Switzerland is not an EU member but participates in the Dublin system. The pattern suggests political choice, not administrative overload.

Other governments read it the same way. The Netherlands treats the standoff as the Pact's first credibility test (Upday NL). Austria watches through the Brenner Pass, the Alpine corridor where migrants who land in Italy cross northward into Austrian and German territory, and sees Rome's refusal as exporting a problem it created (Kurier).

The Commission's next broad assessment is due in October. By then, transfer deadlines on the first post-Pact cases will start running out. If Italy keeps refusing, responsibility for those asylum claims shifts back to Germany and the other requesting states, not through negotiation, but by automatic operation of the regulation itself (AMMR). The Pact gave Europe stronger legal grounds to demand Italian cooperation. It gave no one the power to execute a transfer that Rome does not want.