Angela Merkel’s migration problem is not Italy’s migration problem. And, suddenly, that’s a big problem for Brussels.

A draft document prepared by the European Commission ahead of a "mini summit" of some EU leaders, who will gather this weekend in Brussels at the German chancellor's request, is threatening to blow apart other efforts by the European Council to broker a compromise on the deeply divisive issue of migration and asylum at a regular EU leaders' summit next week.

Italy’s government reacted furiously to the Commission document, which in Rome’s view gives too much priority to addressing Merkel's concerns — and her political crisis at home — rather than focusing on Italy's longstanding complaint that some EU countries have not done enough to help coastline nations bearing the brunt of refugee arrivals.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party, said that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte should boycott the mini-summit if the text remains unchanged.

"If we go to Brussels to play the script already written by France and Germany, if they think to send us more migrants instead of helping us, then we shouldn’t even go," Salvini told the Porta a Porta talk show. "We save the money for the trip."

The widening contretemps shows the EU straining under pressure.

An Italian diplomat confirmed that Conte is considering boycotting the summit.

The Commission draft, prepared by Secretary-General Martin Selmayr, also deeply frustrated Council officials, who had prepared their own plan, focused on the creation of new migrant processing centers called "disembarkation platforms" outside of EU territory.

One EU official said the draft “risks seriously complicating an already very difficult, delicate consensus-building process on migration.”

European Council President Donald Tusk, who is making a blitz of last-minute visits to capitals this week to build support for his plan, views the processing centers as a potential "game-changer," one Council official said, but Selmayr's plan gave scant attention to the idea, including it only in a parenthetical reference in a paragraph calling for better cooperation "dealing with search and rescue operations."

Different priorities

The widening contretemps shows the EU straining under pressure — Merkel, the bloc's most powerful leader, focusing primarily on her domestic political needs after facing the threat of a government collapse; Italy viewing itself as further isolated and victimized by the rest of the bloc; and senior officials in Brussels clashing in a fierce inter-institutional rivalry.

Selmayr and other Commission officials have seethed as the Council has failed, through five rotating presidencies, to reach a compromise on a major legislative package on migration, including a revision of the Dublin Regulation on asylum. Bulgaria, which currently holds the presidency, had made another major push, only to be confronted by a seemingly unbridgeable divide between hard-line countries like Hungary calling for tougher border controls and refusing to take in refugees under an EU relocation scheme, and coastline nations like Italy demanding greater solidarity and burden-sharing, including reallocating asylum seekers across the bloc.

That divide, however, has taken a back seat in recent days to the existential political threat that Merkel faced in a confrontation with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the leader of Merkel's coalition partner, the Christian Social Union. By Monday, Merkel appeared to have defused the threat, in part by convincing Seehofer to wait until after next week's EU summit to impose tough new policies on the return of asylum seekers who arrive in Germany via other EU countries.

Merkel also clinched an important if largely symbolic deal with French President Emmanuel Macron, by which France agreed to take back refugees registered in the country who try to move to Germany, in what is known as "secondary movement." The deal supports Merkel's assertion to her critics that she would secure similar deals with other countries.

The Commission's document puts heavy attention on secondary movement, essentially placing it on par with the challenge of initial arrivals — much to Italy's dismay.

"We renew our strong commitment to jointly advance European migration policy," the Commission document states. "We are determined to achieve progress in further reducing the number of illegal arrivals to the European Union in particular by means of strengthened external border protection, common, harmonized asylum procedures and intensified cooperation with transit countries as well as countries of origin. At the same time, we see a strong need to significantly reduce secondary movements, inter alia, by preventing unlawful crossing of internal borders between member states by irregular migrants and asylum seekers and by ensuring swift readmissions by the competent member state."

A senior Commission official stressed that the document was a draft, issued to diplomats in advance of a meeting on Friday to prepare for the Sunday meeting, and insisted it was complementary to the Council's draft conclusions on migration. "This signals a starting point in the process," the senior Commission official said, adding that "it increases the chances of an agreement at the European Council next Thursday and Friday."

But the Italian government's fury suggested that Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker may have unwittingly stuck his hand in a hornet's nest by agreeing to host the mini summit of some EU leaders to address Merkel's concerns.

Diplomats say that Sunday’s meeting was originally intended to be a small gathering called at Berlin’s behest with Italy, Greece, France, Malta and Spain. But it has since widened to include Bulgaria, Austria and the Netherlands, and diplomats said other countries, including Belgium, could attend.

Tusk declined to organize the smaller gathering, saying he could not preside over a meeting with just some of the EU's 28 leaders, and that he was focused on preparing for the regular summit next week.

Indeed, Tusk was in Rome on Wednesday to consult with Prime Minister Conte and President Sergio Mattarella, as the Italians' anger began to boil over.

“It's very curious that for a summit presented as an informal summit, that you circulate in advance written conclusions not yet agreed,” said one Italian diplomat in Rome. “The only formal results are the conclusions of the European Council,” the diplomat added.

Conte, posting on Twitter, said that he would not address Germany's concerns before dealing with the priorities of his own country “I’m not available to talk about ‘secondary movements’ without having first dealt with the emergency of ‘primary movements,'" he wrote.

Oggi ho avuto con il Presidente Tusk un incontro molto utile. Gli ho anticipato che al pre vertice di Bruxelles non sono disponibile a discutere dei “secondary movements” senza prima aver affrontato l’emergenza dei “primary movements” che l’Italia si ritrova ad affrontare da sola pic.twitter.com/Cme80bMAqr — GiuseppeConte (@GiuseppeConteIT) June 20, 2018

Power grab

The draft document prepared by Selmayr makes no attempt to hide that the Commission is seizing the opportunity to take control of the migration debate.

At the very top, the document is presented as a "Statement of Heads of State or Government" — with a blank space left for the names of countries — and "the President of the European Commission."

And in its conclusion, the draft calls for continued meetings of "high-level representatives, supported by the European Commission, to arrange for further details." The document also crosses directly onto the Council's turf by declaring, "A follow-up to our meeting at the level of Heads of State or Government will be scheduled in autumn 2018."

Austria, which takes over the EU's rotating presidency on July 1, has already scheduled an informal leaders' summit on migration for September 20 in Salzburg. Juncker has previously angered Tusk by trying to decide when a special EU summit should be held.