On 19 August, Abdirisaq Warsame may become the first test of Europe’s newest asylum rules. The 22-year-old Somali woman fled an arranged marriage and reached Germany in March. Now Berlin wants to send her back to Italy, the country she first entered.
Her case sounds procedural, but it captures a fight now unfolding between two of the EU’s largest member states. Germany’s government wants to resume returning so-called Dublin cases to Italy under the bloc’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which took effect on 12 June. Italy insists those cases no longer exist.
The clash tests a system designed to spread responsibility for asylum seekers more evenly across the EU. It also shows how quickly cooperation between Berlin and Rome can turn into confrontation once real people, and real numbers, land on the table.
A pact, then a rift
The Pact on Migration and Asylum replaced the old Dublin III Regulation this summer. It confirms a simple principle: the first EU country a migrant enters is usually the one responsible for their asylum claim. A new solidarity mechanism lets member states share the load instead, through relocations, financial contributions, or practical support.
In December 2025, Rome and Berlin signed a deal to close the books on old disputes. Rome declared every Dublin case that arrived before 12 June 2026 settled. Germany’s Interior Ministry argues that moment has now passed, and normal transfers must resume under the new rules.
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According to La Repubblica, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has taken a harder line on migration as polls show support for the far-right AfD rising. On 19 August, Ms Warsame is due to become the first person returned to Italy under the new rules. She currently lives in a reception centre in Niederwerrn, Bavaria; her mother and brother already live in Germany.
Berlin is not alone in pressing the point. The European Commission published its own assessment of the pact’s first weeks on 16 July. It found that eight member states had requested 12 transfers to Italy between 12 June and 7 July. Italy had refused every one. The Commission’s message to Rome was blunt: a receiving state cannot simply reject a transfer, it can only propose an alternative date.
A dispute over NGO boats
Italy sees things differently. Interior Ministry sources insist no Dublin cases remain outstanding, arguing the December agreement wrote off everyone who arrived before 12 June. For anyone who arrived after that date, Rome says it is still too early to know where they might be.
There is a deeper grievance behind the technical dispute. Italy wants a ‘compensation’ mechanism, one that would offset the migrants it must take back against those brought ashore by NGO rescue vessels flying European flags, most of them German. Nothing in the pact provides for such a trade-off, but the demand reflects years of Italian frustration with search-and-rescue charities operating off its coast.
“It is frankly nauseating to read about compensation mechanisms built on people’s lives, as if they were bargaining chips, as if they were numbers and not people with dreams, nightmares, a past and a future.”
— Sea Watch
German NGOs have rejected the idea outright. Sea Watch called the proposal “frankly nauseating to read about compensation mechanisms built on people’s lives, as if they were bargaining chips, as if they were numbers and not people with dreams, nightmares, a past and a future”.
Germany rejects the comparison outright. A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry said “a functioning Dublin system is a prerequisite for the success of the Common European Asylum System”. Officials in Berlin argue rescue boats save lives at sea and should not be weighed against asylum bureaucracy.
For now, the diplomatic wrangling continues in Brussels and Berlin. Ms Warsame, meanwhile, is still waiting in Niederwerrn to find out whether the letter she received in June will decide her future.
