Austria held a large-scale border patrol exercise on Tuesday, in a symbolic show of defiance against German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open door refugee policy.

On the Austrian border with Slovenia, 200 soldiers and 500 policemen practiced stopping refugees, in an hour and a half long exercise that saw police trainees pretending to cross the border and being turned back.

"A state that cannot protect its borders effectively in the event of a fall loses its credibility,” Herbert Kickl, Austria’s interior minister and a member of the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), told reporters.

The training took place in Spielfeld, where thousands of refugees crossed the border in 2015 after Mrs Merkel introduced her controversial “open door” refugee policy.

The move led to Austria taking in one of the biggest shares of asylum seekers in Europe.

Describing the training exercise as a “major police and army” event, Heinz-Christian Strache, Austria’s Vice-Chancellor and an FPÖ politician, said it would send a “clear signal” that Austria wants to protect its borders.

An Austrian police officer on the border with Slovenia during the exercise on June 26, 2018 credit: Ronald Zak/AP

There “will no longer be a loss of control and free passage like in 2015," Mr Strache told Germany’s Bild tabloid newspaper.

The move comes as Mrs Merkel is embroiled in a row with her interior minister over German border controls.

Earlier this month, Mrs Merkel blocked plans by Horst Seehofer, a CSU politician, to turn away migrants who are already registered in other EU countries at the German border.

In response, Mr Seehofer threatened to take unilateral action if Mrs Merkel fails to find a European solution by the end of this week's EU summit. The shock move was an unprecedented challenge to Mrs Merkel’s authority and has left her political future hanging in the balance.

Mr Seehofer knows that Austria, which last year elected a Right-wing coalition government on the promise of implementing stricter rules for asylum seekers, is on his side.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is even set to speak during the upcoming Bavarian election campaign, instead of Mrs Merkel – a first in the nearly 70-year history of the Union parties.

On Tuesday evening German coalition leaders will meet to discuss the issue of border controls, ahead of the EU summit which starts on Thursday.

A ‘mini-summit’ of more than half of the EU’s leaders, called by Mrs Merkel, and held in Brussels last weekend, ended with no clear resolution.

Meanwhile in the Mediterranean, a days-long deadlock over the fate of a migrant rescue ship with 220 migrants on board appeared close to being resolved after Malta agreed to accept the vessel.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister, who has vowed to drastically cut the number of migrants reaching Italy from Libya, was triumphant, claiming it as another victory in his campaign against asylum seekers.

Last week he succeeded in blocking Italy’s ports to another NGO rescue ship, the Aquarius, which was eventually accepted by Spain and allowed to dock in Valencia.

“That’s number two!” Mr Salvini, the head of the hard-Right League party, wrote on Twitter.

“After the NGO boat Aquarius was sent to Spain, now it is the turn of the NGO boat Lifeline to go to Malta. For women and children who are truly fleeing war, ports are always open, but for all the others, no! #stoptheinvasion.”

The Lifeline, which is run by a German NGO, has been battling bad weather and heavy seas for days with increasingly seasick migrants and refugees on board.

Italy’s populist government refused to let it dock in an Italian port as part of an uncompromising new policy under which humanitarian organisations who rescue migrants in the Mediterranean are being told to head to other countries.

The Lifeline rescue ship, which has around 220 migrants on board credit: Hermine Poschmann/AP

"I have just spoke on the telephone to (Maltese) prime minister (Joseph) Muscat," Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister said. "The Lifeline NGO ship will dock in Malta.”

Mr Conte said that Italy was prepared to “do its bit” by accepting a quota of the migrants but expected other EU countries to do the same.

The populist government has argued that migrants and refugees who set foot in Italy should be considered to have set foot in the EU as a whole.

They want the Dublin regulation – whereby they are expected to remain in the first country they reach – fundamentally overhauled.

“Those who land on the Italian, Spanish, Greek or Maltese coast, land in Europe,” Mr Conte said.

Malta said it would accept the Lifeline as long as the migrants were shared out among other EU countries.

"A European solution may be to have the ship dock in Malta. It is the solution that seems to be shaping up at the moment," said Benjamin Griveaux, a government spokesman.

"France would then be ready to send a team there to study individual (asylum) requests," he said.

The crew of the Lifeline, which has been in limbo between Italy and Malta since last week, said they had been left in the dark over the deal.

“For days now we have to read on Twitter what happens to us. Hardly any direct message. Now we read that we are allowed to enter Malta. We welcome Maltese support but we now need EU countries to welcome the people.”