Italy and Spain have agreed to lift border controls on each other’s citizens, ending a three-month standoff triggered after a mass surge of migrants and asylum seekers entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. The Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and his Spanish counterpart Fernando Grande-Marlaska spoke on the phone and agreed not to extend their suspension of the European Union’s open-border Schengen arrangements, an Italian statement said on Thursday. The decision followed a meeting between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on the sidelines of a European Council meeting.
Italy’s right-wing government first suspended its open-border arrangements with Spain on July 31, saying it wanted to make sure no migrants entering the North African enclave of Ceuta could travel to Italian territory. Madrid responded by taking similar action against Rome, describing the Italian measures as “unjust, contrary to European Union interests, and discriminatory to the population of Spain”. The tit-for-tat border closures happened after upwards of 70,000 people swam around barricades and entered Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco on July 30 and 31, fuelling tension in the Spanish territory.
Most returned to Morocco within hours, but thousands, including unaccompanied minors, have remained for weeks in often dire conditions. The Spanish government’s handling of the mass crossing of migrants into Ceuta has complicated Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s bid for re-election in November. Sanchez was already facing criticism for his government’s decision to open a path to legal status for hundreds of thousands of undocumented foreign residents.
After the Ceuta incident, Far-right Vox and centre-right PP parties accused him of being soft on immigration and put the issue at the centre of their campaigns in the run-up to next month’s elections.
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