{"id":462805,"date":"2026-08-20T16:58:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T14:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/08\/20\/ceuta-nessun-commento-dellue-sulla-sospensione-di-schengen\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T18:06:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:06:47","slug":"ceuta-no-comment-from-the-eu-on-the-suspension-of-schengen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/08\/20\/ceuta-no-comment-from-the-eu-on-the-suspension-of-schengen\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceuta: no comment from the EU on the suspension of Schengen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The European Commission has not done enough to ensure the Schengen Border Code<\/a> is not exploited for political ends.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The political<\/a> sphere, civil society<\/a>, and even the academic world<\/a> have levelled this accusation at the government in the past. This<\/span> criticism was raised <\/a>once again today (20 August) during the EU executive\u2019s daily press briefing on recent events concerning Ceuta. There, between 30 and 31 July, around 80,000 migrants from Morocco attempted to enter the exclave, triggering a crisis that has reignited the debate on internal border controls and the future of Schengen, the area of free movement<\/a> comprising 29 European countries where people can travel without undergoing border checks between one state and another. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In particular, it was noted that following the latest report<\/a> on the Schengen Area\u2014the annual report providing an overview of the state of the area of free movement published in May 2026\u2014on 1 June, the Berlaymont Building <\/strong>had recommended to nine<\/strong> <\/a>countries  (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden) to take action to eliminate and lift<\/strong> the internal border controls gradually<\/strong>. To date, however, eight European countries<\/a> (both EU and non-EU) still have a suspension of the free movement of people and goods in place, justifying the measure on \u201cgrounds of public security.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

For example, Italy was cited, where the Meloni government reintroduced border controls after the events in Ceuta, adding them to those already in place on the land border with Slovenia to manage migration flows from the Balkan route. Added to this is Germany, which began suspending the Schengen area in 2015<\/a>, when it reintroduced border controls with Austria to manage the influx of refugees and migrants along the Balkan route, and which has since continued to renew this suspension every six months, citing various reasons, the latest of which was received in Brussels this week. <\/span><\/p>\n

In light of the observation that the European Commissioner for Migration, Magnus Brunner, is allegedly not doing enough to prevent such abuses<\/strong>, the European Commission spokesperson, Markus Lammert<\/strong>, reiterated that EU law stipulates that \u201cMember States may introduce border controls under certain conditions\u201d and that, at present, the Commission \u201cis working closely\u201d with all Member States that currently have such controls in place, as well as \u201cthe Member States affected by these controls.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The spokesperson emphasised that this involves cooperation not only at a political level, but also at a \u201ctechnical\u201d level, through ongoing consultations, including with our Schengen coordinator, Olivier Onidi<\/strong>. \u201c\u201cIt is a matter of working with Member States to identify alternative solutions, where possible, where the scope can be reduced, in conjunction with agreements between Member States and the Commission,\u201d he explained. Lammert then emphasised that in such a context \u201cit is important to implement digital assistance for border management fully,\u201d and therefore announced that new proposals would soon be put forward concerning the Entry-Exit System<\/strong><\/span>\u2014an automated EU IT system that electronically records entry, exit, and refusal-of-entry data for non-EU citizens travelling for short stays within the Schengen area\u2014and Frontex<\/strong>, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

As regards the IT system, Lammert stated that the Berlaymont Building is currently assessing how to proceed after 6 September, <\/span>the date on which the period during which some Member States had suspended the collection of biometric data expires, to avoid serious disruption in the form of queues at entry and exit points, particularly at the busiest airports<\/a>. \u201cWe are in close and constructive contact with those few Member States that are facing difficulties at a particular time, or that faced them before the summer, and we will be getting in touch with all of them,\u201d he added, before highlighting the \u201csuccessful results\u201d achieved thanks to the system. According to the Commission\u2019s estimates, out of 150 million entries and exits recorded across 29 European countries, over 45,000 refusals were detected, with more than 1,200 cases of individuals posing “a threat to the EU\u2019s internal security.” <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Another criticism levelled at the Commission today concerns Greece<\/a>, where illegal pushbacks at the border and police violence occur, and refugee camps are in appalling conditions<\/strong>. In response to the suggestion that Greece has managed to \u201creduce the number of irregular migrants, but continues to carry out pushbacks and violate the law,\u201d Lammert replied that \u201che believes it is clear that the opposite is true\u201d because \u201cwe have an EU approach that respects the rule of law\u201d and which, at the same time, has \u201creduced illegal immigration.\u201d The question: \u201cSo does the Commission see no problem with what is happening in Greece?\u201d went unanswered.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faced with the observation that the government is not doing enough to prevent the frequent use of the temporary suspension of internal border controls, a spokesperson for the European Commission simply reiterated that EU laws \u201callow for this\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":462754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681,29788],"tags":[26482,26261,26180,25756,26267,25871,35423,26897,35144,35424,35425,30062,35283,35284,30641,26205,35426,31368,32264,26735,27664,26527,35217,28111,26870],"class_list":["post-462805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-diritti-en","tag-asilo-europeo","tag-austria-en","tag-ceuta","tag-ceuta-melilla","tag-commissario-europeo-per-la-migrazione","tag-danimarca-at","tag-detenzione-migranti","tag-diritti-migranti","tag-entry-exit-system-en","tag-immigration-en-2","tag-immigrazione-e-asilo","tag-magnus-brown-and","tag-markus-lammert-en","tag-rights-minors-en","tag-morocco-en","tag-paesi-bassi-en","tag-palazzo-berlaymont","tag-slovenia-en","tag-spain-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462806,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462805\/revisions\/462806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}