‘A torpedo’: Italy-Spain border blow-up now a major headache for Europe – and Australian travellers

London: A sudden move has deepened a border dispute between Spain and Italy that could delay thousands of travellers moving between the countries – and erode a pivotal agreement on passport checks across Europe.

Spain has called on Italy to lift border controls that it imposed last week following a rush of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

Italy has refused to relent after being given a Sunday deadline to drop its additional controls, and Spain has retaliated with measures of its own.

The result is the rapid imposition of passport checks on many travellers moving directly between the two countries – something not seen in decades.

Tempers are running hot. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares described the Italian border policy as “a torpedo fired at the hull of European unity”. Speaking on Friday in Europe (Friday night, AEST), he said that Madrid was prepared to respond with a tough approach of its own. Hours later, it did just that.

This is now a major headache for the European Union. And travellers from Australia.

Italy has suspended the usual rules for travellers from outside the European Union who arrive from Spain, declaring that it needs the stronger safeguards until at least August 15.

Spain has decided to do the same for those who arrive from Italy. This applies from midnight on Saturday – 8am on Sunday, AEST – at Spanish borders. So, officials will conduct passport, nationality and visa checks for Italian passengers and visitors from other countries arriving from Italy.

Australians travelling between the two countries will need to be on guard for additional controls.

What began as a diplomatic dispute about Ceuta is turning into a test of the Schengen Agreement that was signed in 1985 to waive passport checks on travellers moving across the internal borders of most EU member states.

At its best, the Schengen Agreement allows the citizens of 29 member countries to move easily across their borders without a passport check, visa or electronic travel authority.

For visitors from Australia and other countries, it also ensures relatively seamless travel across those internal EU borders. Once the traveller arrives at the first Schengen member state and clears passport control, there is usually no need for any other passport check when moving to other member states inside the Schengen zone.

This has been so successful that the initial agreement of 1985 was codified in a convention in 1990 and extended many times to the point where the Schengen zone now has a population of 450 million people. The latest expansion came last year when Romania and Bulgaria joined in full.

For Australians on longer journeys, the only challenge with the Schengen zone is making sure they don’t visit for more than 90 days in any 180-day period – the basic rule that often leads to side-trips to non-Schengen states such as Britain or Ireland. (While Ireland is in the EU, it never joined Schengen.)

But now, Schengen is under some strain.

The argument between Italy and Spain comes amid other tensions at European borders. The new digital Entry/Exit System, or EES, has led to long queues at passport control for non-EU nationals, who must be registered with the new system.

Travellers have missed flights because of sluggish checks at border control kiosks, where officials gather fingerprints and photographs to enter each person into the vast new database.

It is an operational failure. The workaround at some airports is to halt the EES for a period and return to old ways of clearing queues.

The new argument about Schengen, however, is foundational. It is about whether Schengen has become a point of weakness for Europe when so many are concerned about illegal arrivals and asylum seekers. Political leaders are responding to clear signals that voters want lower migration.

Spain insists that the concern is overblown. Its latest estimate is that 72,000 people entered Ceuta from Morocco in the final days of July. It says almost all of them returned to Morocco. Crucially, Ceuta is not in the Schengen zone. Adult migrants who get to Ceuta have to clear other checks before they can reach the European mainland.

Thousands of the migrants are still in Ceuta, though. Spanish authorities have confirmed about 1100 unaccompanied minors are still in the enclave and have a legal right to remain. They are likely to be transferred to Spain.

Even so, Italy will not drop its concern about illegal migrants getting to Spain and taking advantage of easy travel across borders into Italy. So Spain has chosen to retaliate.

In practical terms, this means Italian officials check passports for non-EU citizens arriving from Spain. Since there is no land border between the two, it entails checks on flights from Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Ibiza, Valencia and other Spanish locations, as well as some ferries.

Italy appears to have an agreement with France to have stronger checks on land border crossings, but it is not clear what difference this makes.

The Spanish response appears likely to mean additional checks on all travellers arriving directly from Italian airports.

Travellers moving through other Schengen states should not see any change – not for now, at least.

But everything depends on whether the argument between Italy and Spain spreads to their neighbours. What if other countries decide they too want to erect barriers against arrivals from Spain because of the anxiety about migrants in Ceuta?

As right-wing leaders in Europe demand bigger and stronger borders, it will be tempting for governments to toughen their policies, even if Spain insists that it has the problem under control.

For the moment, Italy and Spain are set to intensify their fight over national pride and border policy by making queues longer at their airports. And by punishing travellers.

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