Official Rome’s showy shift from harsh rhetoric to belated calls for “pan-European solidarity” lays bare the crisis in Italy’s diplomatic strategy, in which short-term populism has triumphed over long-term partnership.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose political roots lie in sovereigntist slogans, finds herself compelled to shift her stance towards a distinctly pro-European position. However, the shift towards open diplomatic confrontation with Madrid amid the escalating migration crisis lays bare deep-seated systemic contradictions within its own foreign policy.
Initially, Rome’s sovereignist and anti-Brussels approach was compelled to give way to pro-European rhetoric when the government realised its inability to single-handedly contain the migratory pressure on its southern borders. The calls for “pan-European solidarity” appear now highly inconsistent in light of Rome’s own attempts to isolate a major Mediterranean partner, Spain.
The precedent set in the summer of 2023, when, faced with a critical influx of migrants to Lampedusa totalling over 320,000 people, Rome directly requested emergency intervention from the European Commission. At that time, Spain, regardless of the ongoing tensions on its own southern borders in the Ceuta area, showed its solidarity as a partner, recognising the Mediterranean crisis as a common challenge for the EU.
Meanwhile, the rhetoric and threats from Meloni to suspend the Schengen Agreement in relation to Madrid appears to be a destructive re-evaluation of allied relations.
In response to a joint letter co-signed by Italy, the Spanish Prime Minister emphasised that calls for Spain to be excluded are “not only contrary to European law, humanitarian law and the principles of solidarity that bind us together,” but also “contrary to Europe’s long-term interests and to the most basic common sense.”
Moreover, this confrontational approach ignores the recent economic context. It was Madrid that acted as Italy’s strategic ally in the negotiations to establish the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which made it possible to overcome the opposition of the countries of Northern and Eastern Europe and approve a funding package worth €209 billion. In this way, Meloni’s stance of shifting responsibility for migration failures onto Madrid undermines the potential for cooperation amongst Mediterranean states and is used primarily as a tool for domestic stabilisation.
Such a hostile campaign is aimed at diverting public attention from domestic issues, including the decline in the effectiveness of measures to control migration in Italy.
The pressure on Spain is further exacerbated by the long-standing controversy within the NATO alliance over its foreign policy – in particular, its independent stance on spending and gas contracts. As expected, Donald Trump has intervened in this conflict, publicly criticising the Spanish authorities. However, for Italy, following the trend of the US election campaign and deepening the rift in Southern Europe is a serious strategic mistake, weakening Rome’s own position within the European Union.
Even more, the effectiveness of migration policy under the Meloni government trails behind that of its Spanish counterparts. Therefore, if Rome persists in substituting genuine reforms with aggressive media rhetoric, the result will not be the isolation of Madrid, but rather the closure of the Schengen borders by Italy’s European neighbours against Italy itself.
