Spain Imposes Reciprocal Border Checks on Italy

After Rome refused Madrid's ultimatum to withdraw its Schengen suspension, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska signed an order reinstating border checks on arrivals from Italy at ports and airports with direct links between the two countries, effective midnight August 8 and initially set to run until September 7. Marlaska had called Italy's measure 'completely pointless and disproportionate,' disputing any link between the Ceuta crossings and a genuine risk of onward migrant movement into Italy; Rome's response at the prior EU interior ministers' videoconference was that it would 'not accept being dictated to.'