Italy has suspended the Schengen agreement with Spain, closing its air and sea borders amid the recent influx of irregular migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, as the US blames Spanish government policy for the situation.
The Italian Interior Ministry on Friday ordered the closure following the entry of about 50,000 migrants into Ceuta since Thursday, according to ANSA news agency.
The decision followed an assessment by the Committee on Analysis of Immigration and Border Security, chaired by Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi.
Earlier, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, under fire from some of his peers in the EU over an influx of migrants into Ceuta, said: “This is not the time to divide.”
“It is the time to continue building a strong and united EU,” he added in a post on X that included statistics on the number of irregular entries into other parts of Europe.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finland called for excluding Spain from the European visa-free zone as a result of the situation.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the Ceuta situation was caused by Spain’s policy of offering hundreds of thousands of migrants already in the country a legal status.
“They are replacing Spaniards with migrants,” Babis said.
‘Invasion of the West’
The United States blamed Spanish government policy for a migrant surge in the North African enclave of Ceuta.
“This unacceptable incident is the direct result of the Spanish Government’s deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe,” the Department of State said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump portrayed the migrant surge in Ceuta as a warning for America if his opponents get into power.
“I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place,” Trump told a meeting of his cabinet at the presidential Camp David retreat in Maryland.
