Spain has summoned Italy’s ambassador in Madrid after the Italian foreign minister proposed closing the Schengen area with Spain over the migrant crossings into Ceuta.
Foreign minister José Manuel Albares called in Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi for July 31, a day after Antonio Tajani made the proposal on X and tied the crisis to the Spanish Government’s mass regularisation of undocumented migrants.
Albares said the message was unbecoming of a partner and friendly country from which Madrid expected European solidarity rather than partisan demagoguery. He said the events in Ceuta related to a court ruling and bore no relation to what the Italian minister had written.
Tajani called the Spanish decree “profoundly wrong” and said it encouraged human trafficking, arguing that Madrid had handed Spanish and therefore European citizenship to more than 500,000 irregular migrants. Italy and Spain share no land border.
The decree approved in April grants a one-year renewable residence and work permit rather than Spanish nationality.
Government sources told Europa Press it was false that anyone who had crossed in recent days could join the process, which requires applicants to prove residence in Spain before January 1, 2026 and five continuous months in the country at the time of application.
Those sources said the crisis had nothing to do with the regularisation, contrary to what they said was being claimed in some quarters.
They traced it instead to an interpretation of a Supreme Court decision barring the return of people who reach the enclaves by swimming, which they said criminal organisations had used to exploit the vulnerability of migrants.
The court held on July 8 that migrants intercepted at sea off Ceuta and Melilla cannot be summarily handed back to Moroccan authorities, because open water does not provide the physical containment a border fence does.
Madrid turned down local calls for a national emergency declaration but deployed the Armed Forces to support the Civil Guard. At least nine people died attempting the crossing on July 30.
Spain and Morocco agreed the same day to hand back those who had entered Ceuta illegally, an arrangement also covering Melilla.
The sources said the crisis was neither the first nor the last of its kind in Europe and called for such episodes to be managed in line with Spanish, European and international law.
