Schengen on ice: Italy and Spain extend their border standoff for another 15 days, two months after the deadly Ceuta migrant surge

Italy on Tuesday extended border checks on visitors from Spain for another 15 days, checks it first imposed after more than 72,000 migrants poured into Spain's North African territory of Ceuta from Morocco in late July, AP reported.

Spain, which had responded to Rome's measures with its own retaliatory border checks on travellers from Italy, also extended its tit-for-tat controls for another 15 days, the Spanish foreign ministry said.

How the crisis began


The standoff traces back to July 30-31, when more than 70,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta from Morocco in one of the largest single border surges the enclave has ever seen, according to the UK House of Commons Library.

Also read: Morocco, 60,000 migrants and Spain’s Ceuta crisis: All we know so far

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government responded on July 31 by suspending its Schengen arrangements with Spain, saying the move was needed "to protect the security of our citizens and defend Europe's borders," and describing the "uncontrolled immigration" in Ceuta as a threat to Italy's national security.

The move triggered a wider European reaction. Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called for the EU to "consider all options, including a suspension of Schengen cooperation" with Spain, while Finland's Interior Minister Mari Rantanen backed Italy's approach and said Helsinki was weighing similar measures.

The Czech Republic's Andrej Babiš went further, calling for Spain's Schengen membership itself to be temporarily suspended, while France and Portugal moved to tighten their own border security.

Spain hit back roughly a week later, imposing its own passport and identity checks on travellers from Italy starting August 8, after issuing Rome a 48-hour ultimatum to "rectify, put an end to the checks and treat Spaniards like other European citizens."

Italy refused to back down, with Meloni's government maintaining that its checks were necessary to guard against security risks stemming from the migrant surge.

Extending the standoff, again

Although most of the migrants involved in the July surge were eventually returned to Morocco, Meloni's government and other hawkish European leaders seized on the chaos in Ceuta to criticise the migration policies of Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose government had carried out a sweeping migrant legalisation drive just months earlier.

Italy's border checks amount to random police screening of passengers arriving from Spain at airports and seaports, justified on the grounds of a threat to internal security. The Italian Interior Ministry invoked the same justification on Tuesday to extend the checks further, saying in a statement that it had informed the European Union and other European governments that "high risks to internal security persist, in addition to a potential threat related to possible terrorist infiltration."

Spain, for its part, said it was extending its retaliatory measures simply because the conditions that prompted them, Italy's original sanctions, remained unchanged.

Visa-free travel, with a catch

The EU's 27-member Schengen area normally allows citizens of most member states to travel across internal borders without passport checks. Under EU rules, member states may temporarily reintroduce such checks in the event of a serious threat, including to internal security, but the rules also stipulate that such controls should be a last resort in exceptional circumstances and must be strictly time-limited.

Even before Italy's checks began, travellers leaving Ceuta and Melilla, Spain's other North African territory, were already subject to EU border checks at ports and airports. NGOs have reported that more than 140 people died attempting to cross into Ceuta during the July surge, including people who drowned or were trampled in a stampede to scale a breakwater barrier, a toll that rose sharply from initial estimates of around 34 deaths reported in the crisis's immediate aftermath.

A political liability for Sanchez

More than 5,000 migrants remain in Ceuta, prolonging a humanitarian crisis that has become a significant political liability for Sanchez both domestically and internationally. His visit to the enclave was met with protests, with residents booing him and chanting for his resignation while declaring "Ceuta is not for sale," according to earlier reporting.

Also read: Ceuta migrant crisis: Spain breaks silence with firm sovereignty message

The controversy is closely tied to Sanchez's decision to carry out an amnesty for migrants without residency permits who could prove they had lived in Spain for at least five months and arrived before January 1 this year, a scheme that drew more than 1 million applications before its window closed.

The European Commission has said it does not see a direct link between that regularisation programme and the Ceuta crossings, but the political damage from the association has persisted.

(With inputs from AP)