The European Commission has publicly raised what it calls "teething problems" with the return of asylum seekers to Italy under the bloc's new migration and asylum pact.

The Commission's comments mark one of the first official acknowledgements from Brussels that the freshly agreed framework is not operating smoothly in its early stages. The difficulties concern the procedures by which asylum seekers are transferred back to Italy, the country deemed responsible for examining their claims under the EU's common asylum rules.

What the Commission said

Speaking on the record, Commission officials used the phrase "teething problems" to describe the friction surrounding returns to Italy. The wording signals that Brussels views the issues as transitional rather than structural — the kind of start-up difficulties expected when new legal instruments replace long-standing procedures.

The Commission did not announce any suspension of the return mechanism, nor did it indicate that Italy has refused to accept transfers. Instead, the remarks point to practical and administrative hurdles as member states and EU agencies adjust to the reformed rules.

Who is affected

The announcement concerns asylum seekers whose claims fall under Italian responsibility and who are subject to transfer from other EU member states back to Italy. For these applicants, the change does not alter the substance of their claims — Italy remains the country responsible for processing them — but the mechanics of how and when transfers occur are now working through the new pact's procedures.

EU member states handling outgoing transfers, Italian authorities receiving them, and the EU agencies supporting the process are all adjusting to the reworked framework. According to the report by InfoMigrants, the Commission's comments came in response to questions about how the new system is functioning in practice.

The wider context

The new pact on migration and asylum represents the most significant overhaul of the EU's common asylum system in a generation. It rewrites how member states share responsibility for asylum claims, tightens border procedures, and introduces new solidarity mechanisms between member states.

Returns to the member state responsible for a claim — the principle at the heart of the Dublin system — remain a cornerstone of the reformed framework. Any friction in that mechanism, even transitional, matters because it affects how quickly asylum claims move through the system and how evenly responsibility is distributed across the bloc.

Italy has long argued that it carries a disproportionate share of arrivals because of its Mediterranean position. Successive governments in Rome have pressed for faster, more reliable transfers of asylum seekers away from Italy to other member states, and for solidarity contributions from countries that do not take arrivals directly. The current friction runs in the opposite direction: it concerns transfers of asylum seekers to Italy from elsewhere.

What comes next

The Commission's framing suggests it expects the problems to be resolved as the new procedures bed in, through administrative adjustment rather than legislative change. No deadline for fixing the issues was announced, and no new legal instruments were proposed alongside the comments.

Readers should treat the Commission's remarks as the authoritative statement of the current position. Anyone affected by a transfer decision under the pact should consult official EU and national sources for the procedures that apply to their case; this report describes a policy development and does not constitute legal advice.

Passport File will continue to track how the pact's return mechanisms perform as the transition proceeds.