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Italy's far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, threatened Sunday to close the country's airports after the media announced that Germany was planning to send charter flights from Italy. rejected asylum seekers in Italy.
"If someone in Berlin or Brussels thinks of giving up dozens of migrants via unauthorized charter flights to Italy, he must know that there are none and that he does not have any." There will be no airport available, "said Salvini on Twitter.
"We will close the airports as we closed our ports," he added, referring to Italy's decision this summer to ban migrant rescue boats from entering its ports.
His comments came after the German news agency DPA announced Sunday that Berlin was planning to return failed asylum seekers to Italy via charter flights.
The first flight was scheduled to leave on Monday, and another flight is scheduled for October 17, according to the DPA. The migrants were mainly Nigerians entering the European Union via Italy, the agency said.
Similarly, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported Saturday that the German Federal Migration Office sent letters to asylum seekers, warning them of their "imminent" return to Italy under the Dublin rules.
This controversial settlement assigns the responsibility of migrants to the nation's first entry.
However, the German Interior Ministry said Sunday at the DPA that "no deportation (of migrants) to Italy is expected in the coming days".
Immigration remains a hot topic among members of the European Union despite a significant drop in the number of arrivals after the 2015 peak of the migration crisis on the continent.
Germany has hosted more than one million asylum seekers, many of whom have fled Syria or war-ravaged Iraq over the past three years.
Faced with the break-up of its conservative camp and growing xenophobia, Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged to forge bilateral agreements with EU partner countries for the return of migrants.
But while Germany has been able to reach agreements with frontline nations, Greece and Spain, Italy has been a much more reluctant partner at the negotiating table.
Salvini, whose far-right party in the Northern League forms a ruling coalition with the Five Star Movement, has accused other EU members of letting Italy support a unfair share of migrants.
