The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has described as "shameful" the decision of Giorgia Meloni's Executive to extend the Schengen controls with Spain linked to the arrival of migrants in Ceuta for another fifteen days, also reproaching that Italy is currently registering double the irregular entries.
"It is absurd, it is useless, and it is a shame because it undermines the spirit, the philosophy of what it means to be European partners," Albares assessed in statements to the media in the Senate, where he participated in the session of control to the Government, after Rome decided to extend the controls, a measure to which the Spanish Executive has responded in reciprocity.
According to Albares, the decision of the Italian Government responds to "internal politics" and both the Prime Minister, leader of the far-right party Brothers of Italy, and her Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, at the head of Forza Italia, an ally of the Popular Party in Brussels, are not behaving as "European leaders up to the circumstances."
In this context, he urged the PP, as a European partner of Forza Italia, and also Vox, ally of Meloni, to communicate to the Italian Government that "this measure is a shame, it is absurd, and it is ridiculous."
The head of Foreign Affairs emphasized that Italy now has "double the irregular entries than Spain" and recalled that in 2023, when Meloni's Executive was "unable" to manage the arrival of migrants on the island of Lampedusa, "not only did we offer our solidarity, as we have done in many other situations, but we even welcomed irregular migrants by bringing them to Spain."
"I understand that the Italian Government is acting for internal politics, but it is shameful and is certainly a direct attack on the dignity of Spaniards and on the unity and solidarity of Europeans," he reiterated, emphasizing that "Europe without solidarity cannot exist."
For his part, Tajani considered the statement of his Spanish counterpart as "unnecessarily aggressive" in a message on his social networks, in which he defended that his country "applies the rules and European Treaties with the sole objective of defending the security of the borders and of its citizens."
"The reaction of the Spanish Government to the Italian decision to maintain the suspension of Schengen is, therefore, out of place, inappropriate, and unnecessarily aggressive," added the Italian Foreign Minister.