"The target of a 100 percent fingerprinting rate for arriving migrants needs to be achieved without delay," the Commission said. | Joerg Koch/Getty Images Italy should ‘use force’ to fingerprint migrants The Commission has taken legal action against Italy, Greece and Croatia for failing to register newcomers.

Italy must take the fingerprints of all migrants on arrival, using force if necessary, the European Commission said Tuesday.

“The target of a 100 percent fingerprinting rate for arriving migrants needs to be achieved without delay,” the Commission said in a progress report on the implementation of so-called migration hotspots in Italy.

Italy needs to develop “a more solid legal framework” to allow for “the use of force for fingerprinting and to include provisions on longer term retention for those migrants that resist fingerprinting,” according to the report.

The Commission says that systematic checks of fingerprints are not being performed against Europe-wide databases, only against a national system. It wants IT systems to be upgraded, with new fingerprinting machines purchased.

The move comes after the Commission launched legal action against Italy, Greece and Croatia for failing to register all newcomers in an EU-wide database. The fingerprinting of asylum seekers and transmission of data into the Eurodac asylum fingerprint database needs to be done within 72 hours after the migrants arrive.

The three countries were in October given a warning about possible legal action, but the Commission says the concerns have not been adequately addressed. In its progress report the Commission writes that building a “Common European Asylum System has been proceeding too slowly.”

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano defended Italy’s efforts.

"We are intransigent on the photographing and fingerprinting of migrants," Alfano said. "We are close to 100 percent." He added that the Italian legal system already allowed for the use of force in such situations.

"For the work [on dealing with asylum seekers] we've done, the only thing we deserve from the EU is a thank you," Alfano said.

Almost 150,000 refugees have arrived in Italy by sea this year. Only one of the six hotspot areas for the reception of migrants — on the island of Lampedusa — in Italy is operational so far, the Commission said. Italian authorities say that two more hotspots will open within days. The construction of the remaining hotspots will have to be completed by early 2016.

The EU’s border control agency Frontex will deploy 165 additional experts in the area. Today over 200 Frontex agents are helping with border management and asylum applications in Italy.

“Despite the fact that relocation from Italy started earlier than from Greece it is still far behind the rate necessary to achieve the overall target to relocate 39,600 people in two years.”

Migration is on the agenda when EU leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.