The Interior ministers of Italy and Spain, Matteo Piantedosi and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, have agreed this Thursday that reciprocal border controls will not continue.
In a telephone conversation, scheduled following the meeting held on the sidelines of the European Council between the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, both ministers reached this agreement.
"The decision, taken after a thorough analysis of the situation, will be accompanied by a strengthening of information exchange to ensure the full security of the common Schengen area," the Italian Ministry of the Interior reported.
Sources from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior also confirmed the agreement not to extend border controls reinstated last August for flights and maritime connections in response to the migratory crisis in the Spanish North African city of Ceuta.
According to these sources, the Spanish government will not extend border controls for flights and maritime connections originating from Italy, a country that will also end its own.
Meloni met with Sánchez last Thursday in Brussels to try to resolve the border crisis between the two countries.
From that meeting emerged the decision for the Interior ministers of the two countries to meet to proceed with the elimination of these controls, imposed after the massive entry of more than 80,000 migrants into Ceuta from Morocco at the end of July.
Meanwhile, the Italian government had decided to extend for seven more days controls at ports and airports for travelers coming from Spain, which were due to end this Thursday.
Italy initiated the controls
The measure of carrying out controls at airports and ports for passengers coming from Spain was imposed in Italy for the first time on August 1 and was extended up to 3 times.
The Italian Ministry of the Interior justified its decision by "the situation" in Ceuta and, in response, Spain also introduced border controls for travelers coming from Italy.
The Spanish government had also responded to the last extension by imposing the same measure on travelers coming from Italy until October 8.
These measures constituted a suspension of the Schengen free movement agreement in the European Union.
On September 15, when Italy decided to maintain these controls for the second time, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, called it a "disgrace" and an "absurd measure".
For his part, his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani, had criticized the Spanish response of responding with the same controls as "unnecessarily aggressive".
On August 31, after a month of this measure, Italy stated that it had carried out checks on more than 180,000 travelers from Spain at its borders and that it had denied entry to 31 people, including eight Moroccans, and detained six others.
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