Tension between Rome and Berlin has escalated over the issue of illegal migrants, where none of the two parties is right. On one side, the German government uses legalistic arguments, insisting that Italy must take back migrants that landed in Italy and therefore they must be processed on the land of first arrival, as per the Dublin treaty signed by all EU member countries, including Italy.
Italy, on its side, refuses to comply with German requests as long as German NGOs keep dumping in Italy migrants they have rescued in the Mediterranean. It has been calculated that 50% of illegal migrants who arrived in Italy last year came from those NGO ships. Rome insists that German ships should take migrants to Germany.
Currently, one of such NGOs, Sea Watch, has been blocked by Italian authorities and fined (albeit with a minor amount) and is under investigation for suspected collusion with human traffickers.
Germany made about 35,900 take-back requests in 2025, of which roughly 23,900 were accepted, yet only about 5,370 transfers were actually carried out. In 2024, Germany made 74,583 Dublin transfer requests to other European countries but only 5,827 transfers were ultimately carried out—Italy received just three people from Germany that year, despite having accepted more than 10,000 requests.
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s pitch that the causes of migration must be dealt with at the root, i.e. to create development in countries of origin, has remained a dead letter. The famous “Mattei Plan” which was supposed to finance development projects in Africa has produced only small projects, which do not reverse the situation in those countries, while Italy has sought energy supplies in exchange. EIR knows that Transaqua, a project that would make the difference, was submitted to the government but has been put into a drawer.
