Italy and Spain Extend Tit-for-Tat Border Checks as Migrant Spat Drags On

Italy said this week it had extended for another 15 days its border checks on travellers arriving from Spain, drawing a matching response from Madrid, according to The Local Italy. The two governments have now kept reciprocal controls in place through successive renewals, in a dispute that began with a rush of migrants and has hardened into a standing arrangement between two Schengen states.

The measures sit awkwardly inside the European Union's border-free travel area, which normally allows checks to be reintroduced only temporarily and for stated reasons. Each side has framed its controls as a response to the other's, so that what began as a unilateral move has become a loop neither government has moved to break.