Tourists traveling between Spain and Italy are caught in the middle of an escalating ideological feud over European border security involving Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Madrid on Saturday restored border controls on ships and flights arriving in Spain from Italian ports and airports, suspending passport-free travel between the two countries. Spain said the move was necessary to protect its citizens from “the persistent irregular migration pressure suffered by the transalpine country.”
The move was an unmistakable retaliation for the checks that Italy has imposed on travelers arriving from Spain since Aug. 1. Rome enacted those measures in response to the mass arrival of people in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, citing fears that the unauthorized migrants could cross the Strait of Gibraltar and take advantage of the passport-free Schengen area to travel onward to Italy and elsewhere in the EU.
Madrid has pushed back forcefully against that narrative, and noted that the migrants could not leave the North African territory because they lack valid IDs required to travel on ferries to mainland Europe.
Spanish authorities and the European Commission this week confirmed that none of the 72,000 people who surged into Ceuta have crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. During a meeting of EU interior ministers on Tuesday, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi publicly praised Spain for its handling of the situation and expressed Rome’s “sincere solidarity” with Madrid.
Yet despite requests from Madrid, the Italian government has declined to end border checks even after it became clear that there was no risk of the Ceuta crisis spilling into the rest of Europe. Rome’s inaction prompted Spain to issue a statement on Friday threatening to adopt “proportional measures” if Rome did not change course by Aug. 9.
After Meloni’s office responded by declaring “Italy does not accept ultimatums or demands from abroad regarding national security and border control,” Madrid moved to reintroduce its own controls.
A battle fought in passport queues
The tit-for-tat measures are emblematic of Meloni and Sánchez’s broader feud over migration policies.
Italy’s right-wing premier built her political brand as an opponent of migration and has led a charge to get the EU to adopt tougher border controls. Her Socialist counterpart in Madrid has, meanwhile, taken a diametrically opposed approach, arguing that the bloc needs to take in more foreign workers to remain economically competitive and stave off a demographic collapse.
Meloni slammed Madrid after it rolled out a scheme to grant legal status to more than 1 million unauthorized migrants earlier this year, and called for a debate on the consequences of the measure during a meeting of European leaders last month.
As the Ceuta crisis unfolded, the Italian premier spearheaded the drafting of a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa in which 22 EU leaders argued Madrid’s migration policies had undermined the security of the bloc’s external borders.
“We have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration, by coordinating our action, strengthening our external borders and addressing all policies that can serve as pull factors, such as the regularization of [a] very large number of irregular migrants,” the leaders wrote.
Madrid has forcefully rejected Italy’s accusations and pointed out that none of the migrants who entered Ceuta could have benefited from the legal status scheme, which is subject to specific qualifying conditions. Moreover, Spanish officials have bristled at Rome’s suggestion that they are mismanaging the bloc’s external borders, pointing to data showing Italy is doing a far worse job of handling unauthorized migrants.
“Italy is the EU member state that has recorded the highest number of irregular crossings in recent years, with figures that have at times been twice those of Spain,” a Spanish government spokesperson said on Friday.
By reintroducing border controls, Italy and Spain have underscored the fragility of the Schengen area, which has existed since 1995 and now extends to 29 European countries.
Under the current rules, any member country is allowed to reintroduce checks for an initial period of up to six months to address security threats. The measures can be renewed for six-month periods for up to two years, and, in exceptional circumstances, up to three years.
Few expect the spat between Rome and Madrid to endure for that long, but in the meantime those traveling between the two countries will have to endure the resulting inconvenience.
Throughout the week, passengers on flights departing from Spanish airports have complained about the scrutiny they have faced upon arrival in Italy, with travelers reporting significant delays as Italian carabinieri checked their IDs. On Saturday, passengers on Italian flights arriving in Spain were subjected to similar controls, with National Police holding travelers who could not provide official identification.
Some 3.2 million Spaniards traveled to Italy in 2024, and 5.4 million Italians visited Spain. The renewed controls could push travelers to reconsider trips between the two countries — and make other European destinations the inadvertent beneficiaries of an ideological battle playing out in passport queues.