{"id":78633,"date":"2026-08-31T22:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T22:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/78633\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T22:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T22:02:08","slug":"italy-and-spain-extend-tit-for-tat-border-controls-after-ceuta-migrant-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/78633\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy and Spain extend tit-for-tat border controls after Ceuta migrant surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy is suspending its open-border arrangements with Spain for another 15days, extending restrictions it imposed after a mass \u200crush of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta a month ago.<\/p>\n

In response, Spain<\/a> \u200bsaid it will also keep checking passengers arriving from Italy by air and sea for 15 more days.<\/p>\n

Both announcements, made on Monday, prolong ongoing tit-for-tat \u200brestrictions, undermining the European Union’s passport-free Schengen \u200carea.<\/p>\n

Rome<\/a>‘s right-wing government initially brought in the restrictions on 1 August, saying it wanted to make \u200bsure no migrants entering Ceuta could travel on to Italy. Those curbs had been due to expire on Monday.<\/p>\n

The decision to extend the suspension “was \u200btaken… due to the persistence of the factors that \u2060had led to the reintroduction of the \u2060measures,” Italy’s interior ministry said.<\/p>\n

Spanish authorities say between 5,000 and 8,000 people remain in Ceuta after at least \u200c72,000 crossed from neighbouring Morocco on 30 July<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At least 82 migrants were found dead on the Spanish side of the border, and Morocco confirmed 14 \u200cmore deaths.<\/p>\n

The ministry said Italy was aware of “the steps already undertaken by Spain, together with the European Union, to help bring the situation in the area back to normal in the near future.”<\/p>\n

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has \u2060taken a hard line against illegal immigration, is under \u200bpressure from a new far-right party, Futuro Nazionale, whose rhetoric \u200bis resonating with some voters ahead of elections due next \u200byear.<\/p>\n

Italy’s centre-left opposition criticised the decision to reinstate border checks, saying it \u2060would undermine ties with Madrid, and that there was no indication migrants in Ceuta would travel to Italy.<\/p>\n

According to Italy’s interior ministry, more than 180,000 people from Spain were identified entering Italy between 1 and 31 August, with 31 border rejection orders issued – including eight against Moroccan citizens – and six arrests made.<\/p>\n

Spain initially introduced curbs on passengers arriving from \u2060Italy<\/a> on 8 August and said \u200bthey would last for a month.<\/p>\n

A total of 7,696 Italian visitors were identified during airport checks across nearly 700 flights involving 1,144 police officers in the two weeks after the curbs were introduced, Spanish officials confirmed.<\/p>\n

Ahead of announcing their own border controls, the Spanish government had called Italy’s measures “unjust, contrary \u200cto EU interests and discriminatory to \u200cthe population of Spain”.<\/p>\n

The open-border Schengen area agreement allows more than 450m people free travel between member countries without going through border controls, including 25 of the 27 EU member states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy is suspending its open-border arrangements with Spain for another 15days, extending restrictions it imposed after a mass…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3299,866,29490,29618,17,1152],"class_list":["post-78633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-ceuta","tag-italy","tag-italys","tag-italys-interior-ministry","tag-spain","tag-spanish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}