Rome-Madrid row: how Spain checks travellers arriving from Italy

Spain has introduced temporary border checks on travellers arriving from Italy. The checks, which started at midnight, will remain in place until September 7. This move is in response to Italy's similar measures, which were introduced after around 78,000 migrants from Morocco arrived in Spain's North African exclave of Ceuta.

The dispute between the two EU countries has brought Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni into a clash over migration policy. Italy's measures were introduced to prevent migrants who entered Ceuta from travelling onwards to Italy, but Spain rejected this reasoning, calling it based on "spurious arguments".

According to the Spanish interior ministry, the checks are due to "persistent irregular migration pressure" facing Italy. Spain's foreign minister José Manuel Albares described Italy's border checks as "a torpedo fired at the hull of European unity". Italy's government said it would not accept "ultimatums" and would keep its checks in place until at least August 15.

Brief written by urgent.news from Euronews, Times of India, The Guardian, Free Malaysia Today, MyJoyOnline Ghana — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.