Meanwhile, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party echoed Meloni, saying Schengen with Spain should be suspended if necessary.
Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, a member of the right-wing Finns Party, backed the Italian leader on X, accusing Spain of failing to “protect the Schengen Area’s external border from infiltration,” adding that “all European countries must support Meloni’s proposal.”
Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson mirrored those comments, saying that his migration minister was “in contact with his Nordic counterparts and does not rule out taking the measures required to ensure that 2015 does not happen again,” referring to another migration crisis when more than one million refugees and migrants traveled to Europe, fleeing wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Categorizing Spain’s decision to grant residence permits to unauthorized migrants as a “pull factor for illegal migration,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker called for the swift implementation of the European Asylum and Migration Pact. “Should the situation in Spain develop in a way that puts pressure on our national borders, we will do everything necessary to protect them — including, if required, temporary closures of Schengen borders,” he said.
Before Nuñez’s announcement, Marine Le Pen, the leading far-right candidate ahead of next year’s presidential election in France, urged the government to “step up border controls” and vowed to “limit Schengen free movement to EU nationals” if elected president next year.
Conservative presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau said it was “more than ever necessary” to “ostracize Spain from the European community,” and that the “irresponsible socialist government” led by center-left Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had made the passport-free travel area “untenable.”