Italy is considering ending temporary Schengen border checks on its land frontier with Slovenia when the current six-month extension expires in December, replacing them with joint security arrangements agreed with Ljubljana, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said.
Speaking after talks with his Slovenian counterpart Tone Kajzer, Tajani said Rome was “considering positively the possibility of replacing, at the end of the extension, the suspension of Schengen” at the Italy-Slovenia border “with alternative, agreed-upon measures that guarantee security and combat irregular immigration.”
He cited enhanced bilateral co-operation, including joint police patrols modelled on the existing arrangement along the Italy-France border, and said he had already discussed the idea with Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi.
The present controls on the land border with Slovenia run from June 19 to December 18, 2026.
Italy first reintroduced them in October 2023, citing a serious threat to public order and internal security after the October 7 attacks from Hamas, and has renewed them repeatedly.
Official notifications point to the risk of terrorist infiltration along the Western Balkan migration route, instability in the Middle East and Ukraine, high levels of irregular migration and the activity of smuggling networks.
Kajzer welcomed the Italian approach, describing the frontier as “a space for co-operation and new opportunities.”
Slovenia itself lifted temporary internal Schengen checks with Croatia and Hungary at midnight on June 11, 2026, saying there was no longer reason to maintain document controls at those crossings and that other forms of surveillance and joint patrols would suffice.
The European Commission has for months pressed Italy and other member states to phase out prolonged internal controls.
Matteo Salvini said earlier that it was for Rome to decide on the matter, not Brussels.
In opinions issued on June 2 it noted a sharp fall in detected unauthorised crossings on the Western Balkan route and argued that cross-border police co-operation and information exchange were effective alternatives.
Joint Italian-Slovenian patrols have already been operating several times a month.
A January 2025 trilateral memorandum of understanding with Croatia also envisaged joint patrols with the eventual aim of removing the need for reintroduced internal checks.
Italian authorities have previously defended the Slovenian-border measures as effective.
Interior ministry figures cited earlier this year included more than 1.5 million people identified, hundreds of thousands of vehicles checked, more than 11,000 irregular migrants detected and hundreds of arrests, including for facilitating illegal immigration.
The Commission has accepted that member states may temporarily restore controls in the face of genuine threats, but insists they must remain exceptional, time-limited and proportionate.
Hundreds of migrants, up to 480 per day, were trafficked into the European Union, mostly ending up in Germany and the Netherlands, via the Balkan route, authorities have disclosed. https://t.co/9cMKBwJlWq
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 8, 2025
