On July 30, days after greater than 60,000 individuals crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, Italy introduced it was reintroducing border controls with Spain.
Ceuta’s president, Juan Jesus Vivas, instructed broadcaster Telecinco that between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants stay within the enclave, because the overwhelming majority have returned. At the very least 72 individuals died within the crossing.
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As a result of Italy and Spain don’t share a land border, the measure impacts individuals travelling between the 2 international locations by air and sea.
“In Italy, numerous the media protection was saying [Italian Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni is suspending Schengen, or that Spain needs to be faraway from Schengen,” Davide Colombi, a researcher within the Justice and Dwelling Affairs unit on the Centre for European Coverage Research (CEPS), instructed Al Jazeera. “Neither of these choices is definitely obtainable … you can’t kick a rustic out of Schengen.”
The Schengen Settlement, signed in 1985 and put into power a decade later, abolished passport checks on the inner borders of its 29 member states, creating one of many world’s largest zones of free motion.
Colombi defined that suspending Schengen “doesn’t essentially imply something”.
“One member state can’t droop Schengen. What it may do is quickly reintroduce inner border controls,” he stated.
Such controls are, in reality, a well-worn characteristic of the passport-free zone.
In accordance with the Asylum Data Database (AIDA), run by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), a minimum of six member states – Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden – have stored some type of inner controls virtually constantly since 2015, and 9 states maintained them all through 2025.
Europe’s refugee disaster peaked in 2015, when greater than 1,000,000 individuals arrived within the European Union. Germany reinstated border controls with Austria after roughly 40,000 arrivals in a single weekend; Austria, France, Sweden, Norway and Denmark quickly adopted.
‘Nothing greater than political theatre’
However Italy’s transfer represents “the primary time {that a} nation has unilaterally reinstated Schengen border controls primarily based on a lot of arrivals in a rustic with which it doesn’t share inner borders,” stated Eleonora Testi, ECRE’s senior authorized officer.
Colombi was extra direct in regards to the sensible logic. “There isn’t a reasonable chance for anyone from Ceuta to reach in Italy,” he stated.
Neither analyst sees the measure as a response to Ceuta itself a lot as a template to display {that a} member state can invoke Schengen’s emergency provisions over a disaster unfolding in one other territory, for causes which can be extra political than operational.
That studying is echoed by rights teams.
“Italy’s reintroduction of border controls with Spain is nothing greater than political theatre. It’s a savvy manipulation of EU legislation to point out that the federal government is ‘robust on migration’, whereas successfully solely inflicting issues to vacationers and different individuals travelling from Spain to Italy [on a Schengen visa],” stated Chiara Catelli, advocacy officer on the Platform for Worldwide Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM).
Inside days, 22 EU member states signed a joint letter aligning with Italy’s place.
Testi contrasted this with the EU’s remedy of a comparable case, when Poland suspended the fitting to assert asylum at its border with Belarus in March 2025, in what AIDA described as a transparent breach of EU and worldwide legislation. There was no equal present of member-state solidarity – as a substitute, an EU regulation was proposed to assist Warsaw handle the disaster.
“There’s a completely different response on this case,” Testi stated, “in all probability due to the general political positions that Spain has held compared to most different European member states.”
At a time when most European international locations shift in direction of more durable border and asylum measures, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s socialist authorities in Spain has pursued a relatively liberal migration coverage, leaning on financial integration and authorized pathways slightly than deterrence. Not too long ago, Madrid invited undocumented individuals to use for legalisation, permitting them to work – and greater than 1,000,000 did so.
For Colombi, Ceuta just isn’t the place Schengen’s unravelling started.
“The domino impact began again in 2015, and it’s been facilitated by the European Fee not doing something about it,” he stated.
Germany reintroduced controls with Poland in 2023 and once more in 2025. Italy itself has maintained controls on its border with Slovenia. In June 2026, the fee issued formal opinions urging the 9 states with controls in place over 12 months to section them out – steering that seems to have had little sensible impact.
“When you’ve got the one physique that’s speculated to implement and implement EU legislation not implementing EU legislation,” Colombi stated, “it mainly leaves all member states doing no matter they need … responding to their nationwide voters primarily based on fears that they themselves have created.”
That’s the crux of the existential argument.
The European Pact on Migration and Asylum, meant to distribute duty extra pretty throughout the bloc, turned relevant on June 12, barely six weeks earlier than Italy’s transfer examined the situation it was designed to handle.
“We’ve heard the narrative that the pact works, however provided that arrivals are stored low … an asylum system has to operate even in instances of emergency,” stated Testi.
‘Migration just isn’t the existential menace it’s portrayed to be’
The political wrangling over migration comes at a crucial time. Elections are due in 2027 in Italy, Spain and France.
“Relying on how the political tide adjustments … there could be centre-to-right-wing to excessive right-wing governments in all of Europe,” she stated, and with them, much less urge for food for solidarity when the following nation – “it could possibly be Greece subsequent time, it could possibly be Bulgaria” – faces a surge of arrivals.
What led to the lethal Ceuta crossings – Moroccan stress, a Spanish court docket ruling on deportations, or Spain’s regularisation coverage – has been debated.
Jorge Tamames of Madrid’s Elcano Royal Institute known as it “in the beginning a safety, diplomatic, and humanitarian problem, not a migratory one”.
However no matter triggered the Ceuta disaster, the response is what CEPS and ECRE regard as the actual take a look at of the bloc’s cohesion.
“Schengen just isn’t in disaster due to what’s taking place inside the EU,” Colombi stated. “It’s how member states and the fee are coping with these points that’s truly dismantling Schengen, dismantling freedom of motion for everyone … migration just isn’t the existential menace it’s portrayed to be.”
He stated the actual menace to the EU is what occurs when member states uncover that invoking Schengen’s emergency powers in opposition to one another, for political causes, carries no actual value.
