Spain has introduced border controls at all air and sea border crossings from Italy due to an escalating dispute between the two EU countries, UNN writes, citing the BBC.
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The measures, which began at midnight (01:00 Kyiv time) and will last for a month, came a week after Italy introduced similar restrictions following the influx of around 78,000 migrants from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta.
On Friday, Spain demanded that Italy lift the checks by Sunday. Rome said they would remain in place at least until 15 August, when, it said, Spain "expects a new wave of migration" that will hit Ceuta.
The crisis has pitted Spain's Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez against Italy's conservative leader Giorgia Meloni, who has long called for stricter EU migration rules.
Italy does not share a land border with Spain. Its government said last week that the decision to temporarily suspend the Schengen Agreement's borderless regime was intended to prevent any migrants who had entered Ceuta from continuing on to Italy.
Madrid rejected this position, saying it was based on "false arguments" with no factual basis, since migrants who entered Ceuta had no way of reaching the Schengen Area.
In its response to Spain's threat earlier on Friday, the Italian government said it would not accept "ultimatums." It added that it had no intention "under any circumstances of revising the decision to suspend the Schengen Agreement for third-country nationals arriving from Spain, at least until 15 August and in any event until the security and terrorism risks to Italy have been completely eliminated."
Italian officials said that the local authorities conducting the checks were doing "everything possible" to ensure maximum comfort for both Spanish and other European citizens arriving in Italy from Spain.
Rome also reiterated that Spanish citizens are exempt from additional checks upon arrival in Italy, and that these additional measures are carried out only for residents of non-EU countries.
However, El País reported that long queues and waiting times had been observed at several airport terminals in recent days, with passengers arriving from Spain being directed to a designated queue for inspection.
The countermeasures that Madrid decided to introduce on Friday will include checks of passports, citizenship and visas for Italian passengers and visitors from other countries arriving from Italy "against the backdrop of persistent irregular migration pressure" experienced by the country, according to a statement from the Spanish government.
The checks will remain in force until 7 September, "unless a change in the circumstances that led to their adoption requires this period to be changed."
Italy's decision to suspend the Schengen Agreement for a month was supported by Finland and Denmark, while the Czech Republic called for Spain's membership to be temporarily suspended.
Most of the migrants who arrived in Ceuta last week were returned within a few days. One hundred people are believed to have died while crossing the border.
Nearly 1,400 minors, some of them "very young boys and girls," still remain.
Spain has not announced an expected second wave of border crossings from Morocco. But BBC Arabic found dozens of Facebook posts calling for a second border crossing in mid-August, including some advertising the sale of swimming equipment. Six of these groups had more than 100,000 followers. Meta says it removed posts that violated its policies.
The Spanish prime minister's office told El País that it was monitoring the situation but did not expect a repeat of last week's scenes. It remains unclear why tens of thousands of migrants attempted to cross the border into Ceuta, but EU Commissioner for Migration Magnus Brunner suggested that criminal networks spreading disinformation were to blame — a claim the Spanish government also agreed with.
The number of people swimming to Ceuta at the same time raised questions about why Moroccan border guards did not try to stop them.
The two enclaves—Ceuta and Melilla—have long been a diplomatic sticking point between Spain and Morocco, which does not recognize Spain’s sovereignty over them, the publication notes.