The "first challenge" facing Europe is working together to jointly manage migration, Italy's populist premier Giuseppe Conte told members of Italy's Senate upper house of parliament on Tuesday.
"We need a paradigm shift away from an emergency approach," he said.
"We need to come up with a joint response, a stable, sustainable mechanism that is in place right from when migrants land," he said.
Under the Dublin Treaty, migrants are required to seek asylum in the first European country where they arrive but Italy’s coalition government has been working to overhaul the treaty, saying Italy has taken in too many migrants.
The government also wants to change the mandate of the EU's Operation Sophia naval mission, which currently requires all migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to be taken to Italy.
Since populist government came to power in June, Italy's hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini has taken a tough approach to migration, closing the country's ports to NGO and international rescue ships.
Hundreds of migrants have been left stranded at sea for days during several international standoffs that only ended when other EU states agreed to open their ports or pledged to take a share of the migrants.
