Italy temporarily suspends Schengen with Spain over migrant crisis

Written by journalist Danylo Aleksandrov

In accordance with announcement Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni made after consultations with other members of government, Italian Internal Ministry announced the temporary suspension of Schengen free movement regime with Spain.

The announcement came on Thursday evening after Meloni held a meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini. The move happens after around 60 thousand migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta – An exclave of Spanish territory in North Africa. In a post in X, Tajani explained that the decision is motivated by necessity to safeguard the citizens of Italy as well as European borders, adding that such a big and uncontrolled inflow of illegal migrants poses a number of threats including terrorism.

Statements and actions by Italian government were not left without comments by Spanish authorities. Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez in his own post on X wrote that while solidarity and empathy are optional, respect for treaties, commitments and facts is not. In the same post he added the figures from Frontex, according to which Italy received more than double of illegal entries (478,600) than Spain (234,760). Earlier the country’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares condemned the call of his Italian colleague to suspend the Schengen agreement with Spain.

It is reported that several European countries are becoming more favorable of Italy’s decision and are contemplating approval of similar measures. Foreign Minister of Finland Mari Rantanen criticized Spain, saying that it “completely failed to protect the external border of the Schengen area from incursions”.

Previously around 60,000 people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish autonomous territory of Ceuta bu both land and sea. This triggered an outrage across Europe, while Spanish government authorized measures to return those people to Morocco. It is reported that approximately 50,000 were already returned. But fears of such events happening again are circulating in Europe.