Historian: Morocco Sending Message to Spain, EU; Italian Schengen Claims 'Demagoguery'

Historian Steven Forti has dismissed recent Italian government statements about suspending the Schengen Area with Spain as "demagoguery" and "theater." Forti, a professor of Contemporary History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, highlighted that Spain's enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla are not part of the Schengen Area, despite being Spanish and EU territory. This technicality, he argues, renders claims about suspending Schengen in response to migration flows from these areas misleading.

"To enter peninsular Spain, a person entering through Ceuta or Melilla must present their passport before boarding a plane or ferry," Forti explained. "So, a non-existent issue is being created here." He accused politicians, including Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of irresponsibly exploiting the situation for political gain, knowing that the Schengen rules do not apply to these specific border crossings.

Forti situated the current migration crisis within a broader context of hardening immigration policies across the European Union since at least 2024, marked by a discernible shift to the right in its institutions. He noted that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez finds himself increasingly isolated as a progressive leader within the EU, facing pressures both direct and indirect from the United States that have put the bloc in a difficult position.

The historian pointed to a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling, which declared "hot returns" of individuals reaching Spanish territory by sea as illegal, as a key trigger for the current crisis. This ruling circulated widely on social media. Forti emphasized that such a large influx of people into Ceuta within a short period would be impossible without the cooperation, or at least non-interference, of Moroccan authorities, drawing a parallel to the 2021 crisis but noting a difference in the stated reasons from Moroccan officials.