The Interior Ministry keeps controls with Spain until August 31 and says no to returns from Germany

The Italian government is playing two border matches at the same time, and playing them in opposite directions: to the south-west it keeps one door shut, to the north it refuses another that someone would like to open from outside.

The first decision concerns Spain. The Interior Ministry has established that it will keep border controls in force until August 31, 2026, postponing to that date the assessment on a further extension or a return to the ordinary regime. The measure applies to the air and sea borders of all Italian airports and ports with direct connections to Spain. In the hearing before the parliamentary Schengen Committee, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi reported the figures produced so far by the mechanism: 3 arrests and 21 refusals of entry of third-country nationals since the start of the controls.

These are figures that should be read for what they are. An operation involving the entire network of ports and airports connected with another member state of the Union has produced, in a few weeks, twenty-four individual measures overall. The data do not indicate whether the measure works as a deterrent — an effect that by definition cannot be measured through the numbers of those stopped — but it is the only public indicator currently available to assess it.

The origin of the suspension remains the late-July influx at Ceuta: between July 30 and 31 around 72,000 third-country nationals entered the Spanish exclave irregularly, which has around 83,000 inhabitants. The chain reaction is documented. Madrid responded on August 7, subjecting to border checks those arriving from Italy: among the airports concerned are those of the Spanish capital, Barcelona and Seville. The European Commissioner for Home Affairs Magnus Brunner is following the file and is in contact with both the Interior Ministry and the Spanish authorities.

The argument with which the minister defended the choice in Parliament is one of principle: there cannot be European countries holding a greater right than others to protect their own national security. On the practical side, Piantedosi assured that for Italian travelers to Spain and for Spanish travelers arriving in Italy nothing changes compared to what already happens.

The second match is being played with Berlin. The Interior Ministry sent the German government a formal communication in which it states that Italy will not accept the return of asylum seekers who transited through Italian territory as the first country of arrival. The dispute has a precise scope: three transfer cases predating June 12, 2026, the date the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum entered into force. Rome considers them covered by the so-called “amnesty for Dublin cases”, provided for by a bilateral agreement signed with Germany in December 2025. Berlin holds the opposite view: the Dublin system remains fully operative even for cases prior to June 12, on the basis of earlier bilateral agreements.

The Italian government adds to the legal question a political request, that of a “compensation mechanism” linked to migrants landed in Italy from ships of German non-governmental organizations: according to figures provided by the Interior Ministry, 2,000 people since the beginning of the year and 500 since June 12. The matter will end up in Brussels: Italy has announced it will bring the case to the attention of the European Commission. “We will raise all of this with the European Commission but we trust there will be fewer and fewer Dublin cases”, the Interior Minister said.

The two cases share an element that makes them readable together: in both, Italy claims a national reading of common rules, and in both the counterpart is another member state, not a third country. On the Spanish front the Italian decision triggered a mirror measure from Madrid, adopted on August 7; on Dublin the dispute concerns three individual cases, but the precedent arising from it would apply to all subsequent ones.

The next verifiable date is August 31, when the Interior Ministry will have to decide whether to extend controls with Spain further or let them expire.