The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, criticized that Spain did not consult the rest of the European Union countries about the recent regularization of 500,000 migrants, in an interview published this Tuesday in the newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera”.
“Spain is regularizing 500,000 undocumented foreigners and is doing so without having shared this decision with any of its European partners and this is not right. Now we know that there are even a million regularization applications, and who prevents these people from moving freely within the Schengen area?”, said the Vice President of the Government.
In the interview, he also defended that Italy suspended in August the free movement treaty with Spain by carrying out controls at ports and airports on those arriving from that country following what happened in Ceuta and assured that this decision was made based on “objective elements, analyzed by competent institutional committees“.
“And what will happen to the 5,000 sub-Saharan migrants in Ceuta, who cannot be returned to Morocco? Where will they go? It is no coincidence that the Danish socialist government was the first to share our concerns, along with many other EU member states. What happened in Ceuta is not an isolated event; it poses a risk to the entire Union, and we have the right to demand additional measures, clarifications, and preventive actions to ensure that these events do not recur and do not compromise the social fabric of other EU member states,” he added.
He also stated that he understands “Spain’s nervousness over its failed migration policy” but that Italy has “the duty to protect the borders”.
“We have always shown solidarity with Spain; we are friends of the Spanish people, but their policy on this matter is not perfect, and we took these measures after careful consideration by the Ministry of the Interior,” he added.
Regarding the statements of the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, who said in an interview on Spanish Television that in the Ceuta migration crisis there have been European governments that have not been up to the task and cited Italy, which he said is the country with the highest influx of irregular immigrants, Tajani disagreed with this.
“The figures they cite are from before 2021. The real data are different. We have seen a halving of irregular arrivals, thanks in part to a foreign policy that has been more than responsible in migration matters under the government of Giorgia Meloni,” he emphasized.
