Ceuta: Spain warns Italy it will reciprocate entry checks

Spain 's government on Friday threatened to impose reciprocal entry checks on travelers from Italy , unless Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni 's governemnt lifts the measures it has implemented by Sunday.

Italy's right-wing government announced the checks at the height of the social media panic as tens of thousands of people gained entry to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta bordering Morocco last week.

The checks are essentially symbolic, given that Ceuta is not on the European mainland and Italy and Spain do not share a land border, meaning that the vast majority of people potentially affected are tourists on planes.

Nevertheless, the issue has turned into a point of dispute between two governments of different ideological persuasions with contrasting messaging priorities on migration policy.

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Spain called Italy's decision to impose checks on people arriving from Spain "unjustified, contrary to the interests of the European Union and discriminatory against ​the Spanish population."

Madrid had objected to the move on several grounds, saying it was based on "spurious arguments."

It said there was no real risk of people who overwhelmed Ceuta's border controls reaching the European mainland, let alone Italy. It pointed to the vast majority of the estimated 72,000 people returning to Morocco within days . Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also drew attention to the higher numbers of irregular migrants reaching Italian than Spanish territory in recent years.