Spain responds to Meloni for keeping Schengen suspended and extends controls to Italy: Sánchez says they "make no sense"

Spain will maintain border controls for travelers arriving by sea or air from Italy for another 15 days. The Government has thus responded to the decision by the Executive of the far-right Giorgia Meloni to prolong for two weeks the temporary suspension of Schengen with Spain due to the migratory crisis in Ceuta.

The Ministry of Interior confirmed this Monday the extension by reciprocity. Spain activated its controls on August 8 after Rome decided to inspect travelers from Spanish territory and had left open the possibility of withdrawing them if Italy did the same. Meloni has finally opted to maintain her measure and Madrid has responded in the same terms.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, had questioned the Italian action this very morning. In an interview on 'Hoy por Hoy' on Cadena SER, he assured that these controls "make no sense" and recalled that Spain helped Italy when Meloni's Government faced strong arrivals of migrants to the island of Lampedusa.

Sánchez has demanded the same solidarity for Spain and regretted that the Italian Prime Minister was among the 22 European leaders who questioned Spain's management of the Ceuta crisis.

Rome maintains the measure but begins to lower the tone

The Italian Minister of Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, communicated the decision to his Spanish counterpart, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, during a conversation that Rome has defined as "constructive". The Italian Government maintains that the security reasons that led to the reintroduction of controls on August 1 persist, although it expressly recognizes the initiatives adopted by Spain and the European Union to move towards normalization in Ceuta.

Piantedosi has even gone a step further and has publicly expressed confidence that this will be "the last suspension". The phrase lowers the confrontation after a month in which Meloni has used the Ceuta crisis to harden her migratory discourse and put political pressure on the Spanish Government.

Spanish controls have forced, as of 1:00 p.m. this Monday, the checking of documentation for 12,885 travelers from third countries coming from Italy. The Interior Ministry counts 1,111 inspected flights and the accumulated participation of 1,885 agents since the activation of the device. Madrid-Barajas concentrates the largest number of identifications, although controls are also being carried out in Barcelona, Alicante, Valencia, Bilbao, the Balearic Islands, and several airports in the Canary Islands.

The Italian application has so far yielded a much smaller result. According to the Italian newspaper 'La Repubblica' this Monday, eight Moroccan citizens have been rejected since Rome reinstated border controls with Spain.

Spain will now maintain inspections for the same additional period set by Rome. Piantedosi has acknowledged the progress in Ceuta and is already talking about this being the last extension; until then, controls will remain active on both sides.