(by Stefania Fumo) (ANSAmed) – BERLIN – Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Friday declined to comment on a German politician’s criticism of his alleged failure to stick to EU law on asylum seekers. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann earlier said Alfano is “barefaced” in his complaints about high numbers of refugee arrivals to Italy while at the same time, Rome reportedly fails to meet European norms on the issue.

“It is rather barefaced that…(Alfano) should on the one hand complain about the heavy burden deriving from the arrival of refugees across the Mediterranean while on the other, he is not concerned with respecting European regulations on asylum matters,” said Herrmann, who is from the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), the smaller sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU). Alfano recently said Italy’s Mare Nostrum migrant search-and-rescue operation would stop, and the European Union’s border agency Frontex should step in to cope with an influx of asylum seekers from North Africa, many originally from Syria and Iraq.

The EU has replied that Frontex is currently too small to take over the task.

Hermann, in an interview with DPA news agency, also accused Rome of deliberately ignoring standard refugee procedures, such as fingerprinting, in order to allow individuals to leave Italy and seek asylum in other countries.

“Italy in many cases intentionally does not take personal data and fingerprints from refugees to enable them to seek asylum in another country,” he said. He went on to say that European norms call for “the country of first entry (into the EU) to be responsible for asylum procedures,” and Italy is receiving EU funds for this purpose.

The Bavarian politician also cited what he called “discrepancies” in official numbers. While Germany in 2013 processed over 126,000 asylum requests, Italy only racked up 27,930, against a total of 60,000 refugees that reached Italy last year, according to United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) figures. UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres said in March that out of the industrialized nations, “Germany is the one that takes in the most refugees”.

For this reason, other EU member States “can rightfully ask Italy to show solidarity in respecting the joint European asylum system that Union countries have agreed on,” said Herrmann.

This is all the more true as ongoing wars in the Middle East and “the brutal violence” being perpetrated by Islamic State (ISIS) fundamentalist militias in Iraq will only increase the flow of refugees to Europe, the regional minister pointed out.

“We have no comment,” Italy’s interior ministry replied.

“The remarks were made by a regional minister, not a German government minister”. (ANSAmed).