Sunday's elections have heralded a dramatic change in the Italian political landscape. Voters turned to anti-establishment, far-right populist parties in large numbers, leaving the country with a hung parliament. Italy now faces weeks, or even months, of coalition negotiations before a government will be formed.

Matteo Renzi's incumbent Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat, with widespread voter dissatisfaction over high levels of unemployment, poverty and the arrival of 600,000 migrants in Italy over the past four years.

The nationalist EU-sceptic Five Star Movement (M5S) was the biggest winner, with 32.7 percent of the vote. It has taken an anti-establishment position of blaming corrupt politicians for a host of the country's problems. The League (La Liga) came second with 17 percent, on a xenophobic and racist platform that cast migrants as a scapegoat for Italy's economic crisis.

EU refugee policy

The election results clearly show that Italian voters have been deeply unhappy with the country's handling of the refugee crisis. By extension, EU refugee policy has come under fire, in particular the Dublin Regulation which means asylum seekers have to return to the country through which they first entered the EU.

According to Marie De Somer, a senior policy analyst from the Brussels-based European Policy Center, "What is more important is the election result more generally, and the image it clearly paints of an Italian population that is unhappy with the state of affairs — clearly also, when it comes to the state of affairs with immigration. That could be something that is worrying for EU leaders."

EU states situated on the Mediterranean have long argued that they bear an unfair burden of receiving migrants who are trying to enter Europe. Greece, Italy and Spain have had to cope with an influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants in recent years.

Other EU member states, for example the Visegrad group, made up of  Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, have refused to support an EU quota system that was designed to ease the burden on European border countries. They argue that migrants will create societal problems and that the EU's main focus should rather be on protecting its external borders.

Last December, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, called for refugee quotas to be abolished and publicly described the EU's refugee policy as divisive and ineffective. He was rebuked by EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, who said that solidarity with the EU "cannot be cherry-picked," adding that the EU had a moral and legal duty to protect refugees.

EU obligations

De Somer believes that the situation in Italy, with regards to burden-sharing, is unlikely to change. "If you're looking at reforms to the Dublin Regulations and where they're heading now, the countries on the frontline will continue to carry the main burden if things remain unchanged, and if there is no agreement on the whole discussion on how to relocate refugees within Europe," she says.

"Even with the results of the Italian election, the main power blocs, and main issues at play remain the Visegrad four versus the others." De Somer believes that any compromise with this Eastern Bloc seems remote at this stage.

"Even if the council comes up with a compromise and finds an agreement that brings together all the member states including the Visegrad states, a compromise on the terms that are posed by the Visegrad four will definitely be in conflict with the European Parliament's position."

If a new Italian government were to adopt a similar stance to the Visegrad Group, the country would remain bound by its EU obligations. Any violation on this front would see a procedure brought against it at the European Court of Justice. As well, De Somer says, any human rights abuses would be addressed at the European Court of Human Rights. "That is an EU level response that is there depending on what Italy is potentially doing wrong in line with its European obligations."