A migrant ship, the Diciotti, docked at the Italian port of Catania, but prime minister Luigi Di Maio threatened that Italy would cease to become a net contributor to the EU budget unless there is a fair distribution of refugees.

The EU called an emergency meeting but no action was taken.Instead, the EU rebuked Italy for making “Unacceptable Threats“.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that envoys from EU states who met in Brussels on Friday did not reach a deal to share out the 150 migrants on board the Diciotti, an Italian coastguard ship docked in Catania since Monday.

Italy will “act accordingly”, he said on Facebook, noting the EU had failed to live up to its principles of “solidarity and responsibility” and that there was a gulf “between words and actions” that is colored by “hypocrisy”.

More than 650,000 people have reached Italian shores since 2014 and Rome has begun to take a rigidly anti-immigration line, saying it will not let any more rescue ships dock unless other EU states agree to take the people in.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who heads the anti-immigrant League party, has insisted they will not be allowed ashore until other EU states agree to take them in – prompting a criminal investigation into whether the migrants are being held against their will.

“Unconstructive comments, let alone threats … will not get us any closer to a solution,” [EU] spokesman Alexander Winterstein told a news conference on Friday.

Opposition lawmaker, Riccardo Magi, said most on board could qualify for asylum.