Pedro Sánchez and Giorgia Meloni represent two of the most opposing political models in today’s Europe. He, leader of the Spanish social democracy; she, leader of a national-conservative right that came to power in Italy with a discourse focused on immigration, security, and the defense of traditional values. For years, both have managed to maintain a reasonably functional institutional relationship despite their deep differences.
Besides the importance of diplomatic relations between Italy and Spain, they were united by something greater: the defense of the southern border of the European Union and NATO. But the Ceuta migration crisis ended up breaking that balance. For the first time, the confrontation jumped from the political to the legal level, with Schengen as an instrument representing their political clash and reciprocal border controls between the countries.
When Meloni arrived at the Palazzo Chigi in October 2022, the distance between Madrid and Rome was evident. Sánchez had made the fight against the radical right one of the pillars of his political discourse, and Meloni precisely represented the rise of that right in Europe. The Italian Prime Minister also maintains a privileged political relationship with Vox and Santiago Abascal, whom she has even visited at his home in Madrid. However, Moncloa chose from the beginning to separate ideology from state interests.
Thus, the first meeting between Sánchez and Meloni took place in Rome in April 2023. The meeting was “cordial” and marked by the willingness to seek areas of understanding on issues such as immigration, energy, European funds, and the reform of fiscal rules. Normality beyond political ideologies. However, the truce lasted little. During the July 2023 general election campaign, Meloni became one of Vox’s international references as a real alternative to the PP-PSOE alternation. But Vox’s fall in those elections was also interpreted as a failure in the leader’s bet.
Italy’s traveler controls started only in Madrid and Barcelona and have extended to five airports
- Editorial: EL MUNDO Madrid
First travelers from Italy affected by controls in Barajas after the clash between Sánchez and Meloni: “It’s ridiculous, only for political reasons”
- Editorial: DANIEL GÓMEZ-FONTECHA Madrid
Since then, immigration became the main point of friction. Meloni had come to government promising to tighten border control and reduce irregular entries. Sánchez defended a different model, based on a combination of border control, cooperation with countries of origin and transit, legal migration pathways, and greater European involvement. Both agreed that immigration should be an EU priority but disagreed on how to address it. They insisted on the need for the European Union to pay more attention to its southern border.
So much so is this shared interest by the two countries that, in December 2024, the Government sent the Kings on a historic State visit to Italy. Three days of meetings in Rome in which Felipe VI wanted to emphasize everything that unites the two Mediterranean countries. During that tour, the Monarch elaborated on two important ideas for both countries: that cultivating bilateral relations is essential “the search for joint responses to the challenges and difficulties both countries face” and that by working together they could “make the voice of Southern European countries shape the European response to so many global challenges and the future of the common project.” A call that has been eroded by different policies.
The distance widened with the Middle East. Spain’s recognition of Palestine in May 2024 accentuated the difference between the two governments. Pedro Sánchez adopted an increasingly critical position towards Israel and more active in defense of the two-state solution, while Giorgia Meloni maintained a stance much closer to Benjamin Netanyahu and more cautious regarding the unilateral recognition of Palestine.
Free movement
But it was the massive swimming crossing of migrants through the border with Ceuta that blew up a relationship that now seems very eroded. Faced with the image of thousands of people crossing from Morocco, Meloni presented Spanish policy as an example of what Europe should not do. Madrid interpreted that discourse as an attempt to make Spain the counterpoint to the Italian strategy, and the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, summoned the Italian ambassador in Madrid to complain about the comments from Meloni’s government. But the fact is that 22 EU countries seemed to listen more to Meloni than to Sánchez and asked for explanations about Spanish migration policy.
While the Spanish government tries to assert that normality has been restored, the Italian government decided to reinstate border controls for people coming from Spain for 15 days. The decision provoked an immediate reaction from Madrid, which considered the controls unjustified and recalled that Ceuta has its own border mechanisms to prevent people entering irregularly from freely moving to the rest of the Schengen area.
The discussion took on a completely different dimension. It was no longer about whether Spain should have a more open migration policy or Italy a more restrictive one. It was about free movement within the European Union. Sánchez demanded that Meloni lift the controls. Rome refused. Sánchez’s response has been to temporarily reinstate border controls for travelers coming from Italy at ports and airports.
Sánchez and Meloni, who for four years balanced cooperation for common interests, have protagonized in one week the bitterest clash between EU countries in decades. A conflict that has much deeper roots because it appeals to the treatment of each country’s migration policy and seems difficult to resolve through diplomatic channels.
EU reaction
Contacts. The European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration, Magnus Brunner, held talks yesterday with the Interior Ministers of Spain and Italy, Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Matteo Piantedosi, who confirmed to him that the reciprocal controls at their borders “are temporary.”
Message. According to his official X account, Brunner conveyed to both countries the importance of the “progress” achieved by the 27 in the fight against illegal immigration and warned them that “trust among member states” is the “most valuable currency.”