The EU has taken Italy “for a ride on migrants by failing to respect” resettlement agreements, the country’s Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said yesterday.

The EU has agreed to redistribute some 160,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Italy and Greece, which are the first countries of entry for the majority of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean, by 2017.

He added that Italy had fulfilled its obligations because it is “serious” about them, but the EU had taken the country “for a ride on migrants by failing to respect” the agreement.

“As long as we have carried out the mission that serves all Europe, at least, the EU must pay us the price for that.”

This is not the first time Alfano has slammed the EU’s response to the migrant crisis. Last week he told his EU counterparts: “We are here to denounce that the [migrant] pacts struck in these authoritative fora have not been respected.” Italy has repeatedly urged the EU for more help in coping with the influx of migrants and refugees from North Africa.

Official Italian statistics reported by the Anadolu Agency showed that 144,527 migrants had arrived on the Italian coast between 1 January 1 and 10 October this year, while 136,373 arrived during the same period last year.