Rome will not sign a deal with Germany on the repatriation of migrants unless it is part of a "wider agreement" that includes changes to current European Union asylum rules, hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini said on Friday.
"I won't sign as long as Berlin keeps turning a deaf ear and fails to respond to our demands," Salvini told Austrian daily Die Presse in interview.
Under the draft agreement, migrants who land in Italy and cross Austria to the German border will be sent back to Italy while an equal number of migrants saved in the Mediterranean will be sent directly from Italy to Germany.
Italy wants the EU to revise the so-called Dublin Regulation requiring migrants to claim asylum in the first European country they enter. It also wants the burden of taking in migrants who are rescued in the Mediterranean to be shared more fairly among EU states.
"Italy also wants new rules governing boats that rescue migrants," Salvini said.
On several occasions since it took office in June, the populist government has refused to allow charity and international rescue ships to dock at Italian ports, triggering standoffs with other EU states that left hundreds of migrants stranded at sea for days.
