Here we are, turned into collateral victims of the struggle between Pedro Sánchez and Giorgia Meloni: trapped in a boiling “finger” under the Barcelona sun. We Italians who were thinking about the beach, the Ramblas, and the nightlife, find ourselves locked in by four civil guards unable to open the glass door. A flight attendant would be needed, but the ground staff have not yet been mobilized for this countermeasure with a strong political smell and little real necessity. A cleaning worker briefly stops his cart full of buckets and mops: “Another plane from Italy?” It seems like the easy fallback of an old ad.
Read more The faces of the missing from Ceuta
Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, the second busiest in Spain after Madrid-Barajas. A minute ago we were cool inside the plane, pampered like first-class customers; now we find ourselves without air conditioning and with four uniformed agents blocking our well-deserved holidays without any explanation. Pure second-class citizens.
A matter of hypothesis
“They must have had a tip-off,” ventures one who has seen too many action, drug, and spy movies. “It must be about the Ceuta issue,” guesses another. The most repeated comment among Spaniards returning home matches that of the Italians coming on vacation: “No way!”
Controls are activated at Spanish airports: the police stop passengers from the flight coming from Italy. The children start to cry. One of them bypasses the stalled line and presses his nose against the glass. The girls in summer clothes are the ones who handle the heat best. “But come on, what is happening?” What is happening is that the Schengen Area, that great achievement of united Europe, has blown up. At least between Spain and Italy. Then, if an irregular immigrant enters from Spain passing first through France to later reach our country, no one monitors them.
Three American tourists trapped in the corridor do what they can with battery-powered fans. “I didn’t think ICE existed in Europe too”, comments one, referring to the US immigration police. They have mixed skin tones and panic begins to show on their faces. “You have no idea of the atrocities ICE commits there,” explains one of them before asking: “Do they do ‘racial profiling’ here too?”
According to police sources, the Civil Guard has orders to randomly inspect passengers coming from Italy, whether by sea or air. Documentation is required from about 10% of the passengers. The anti-immigration deployment is covered by a wall of 400 agents mobilized within hours by the Government. The first surprise checks were carried out at dawn at the main airports and then extended to Málaga, Seville, and Alicante. Finally, this unprecedented barrier between Spain and Italy has also reached the Balearic Islands, lest the mafias invent new routes. The inconveniences, the Ministry of the Interior assures, will be minimal thanks to patrols of between two and four agents depending on the size of the aircraft.
Documents in sight
Our flight, VY6343 Malpensa-Barcelona, was lucky: it had four assigned agents. When the doors gave way, the document check was quick and without hysteria: no racial profiling or humiliating treatment. Photo comparison and forward. One agent looked at passports against the light while IDs barely required attention.
While Italy has chosen to channel passengers coming from Spain into specific, slower lines at the usual controls, in Spain the Law waits at the foot of the stairs, on the bus, or on the “finger” itself. There is no possible mixing with travelers from other flights without first passing through the filter. Community citizens should have no problems; third-country nationals must prove they have the proper permits.
Of all the passengers, only one very tall woman with a pink suitcase and bag was detained. She spoke perfect Spanish but had flown from Milan without a physical document. The photo on the mobile phone was not enough. The standoff between Meloni and Sánchez that cracks the freedom of movement in Europe is measured in minutes. Here, fortunately, there are no barbed wires or watchtowers, only that slight unease that is unpleasant to feel again.
Conservatives and socialists entrenched, as if anyone were really in favor of irregular immigration. A farce more than a tragedy. Some pretend to forget and others remain silent for fear of being labeled racists. The vast majority of foreigners regularized in Spain are Latin Americans: the former metropolis welcomes them because they share a language and, above all, because they work. They are needed in a country growing at a good pace.
“Open borders are proof that Europeans have decided to share a common destiny and treat each other as brothers,” said Jacques Delors. But as is well known: among brothers, sometimes knives are in excess.
