Last Updated on 9 seconds ago by TodayWhy Editorial
On 31 July 2026, Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni said Spain should be excluded from the Schengen area after tens of thousands of people crossed into Ceuta from Morocco. She called the images shocking and said Italy was ready to act, including by suspending the Schengen agreement with Spain.
Searches for “Schengen” spiked immediately. The question underneath them is simple: can that actually happen?
The short answer is no. There is no expulsion mechanism in the Schengen rulebook. But the longer answer is more interesting, because the rules do allow something quite close to it — and eight countries are already using it right now.
Can a country be expelled from Schengen?
No. Nothing in the Schengen Borders Code provides for removing a member state.
Schengen is not a club with a disciplinary committee. It is a body of EU law that member states are bound by. A country can choose to join, and the legal framework can be amended, but there is no clause allowing the others to vote one out for failing to control its external border.
What a state can do is reintroduce checks at its own borders with that country. That is a different thing, and it is what Italy and France have actually announced.
What Schengen actually is
The Schengen area guarantees free movement to more than 450 million EU citizens, plus non-EU nationals legally present in the EU.
The governing law is the Schengen Borders Code, Regulation (EU) 2016/399. Article 22 sets the basic rule: internal borders may be crossed at any point, by anyone of any nationality, without border checks.
Enforcement sits at the external border — airports, seaports, and land frontiers with non-Schengen countries. The internal borders are supposed to be invisible.
Supposed to be. Articles 25 to 29 create the exceptions, and those exceptions have become routine.
What the rules do allow: temporary reintroduction
A member state may reintroduce checks at some or all of its internal borders when facing a serious threat to public policy or internal security. The Commission describes this as a measure of last resort, limited to exceptional situations, bound by necessity and proportionality.
The time limits depend on which legal basis is invoked.
- Unforeseeable threats (Article 25a(1–3)): immediate reintroduction for one month with no prior notification. Extendable, but the total cannot exceed three months.
- Foreseeable threats (Article 25a(4–6)): up to six months, renewable in six-month blocks, with a two-year ceiling. Four weeks’ notice is normally required. After six months, every renewal must include a risk assessment; after twelve, a report to Parliament, Council and Commission.
- Major exceptional situations: a further six months beyond the two-year ceiling, and then one final six-month extension — a hard maximum of three years.
- Large-scale public health emergencies (Article 28): the Council, on a Commission proposal, may authorise controls for six months at a time.
Controls are not supposed to mean closed borders. They mean identity checks, usually targeted rather than systematic, based on risk analysis.
Eight countries already have internal border controls in force
This is the part that reframes the Italian demand, and it is verifiable from the Commission’s own notification table.
As of the end of July 2026, internal border controls were in place in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden. Denmark, Slovenia and Switzerland have also notified controls during 2026.
The stated reasons vary: irregular migration and pressure on asylum systems for Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Poland; organised cross-border crime for Sweden; Russian sabotage threats to energy infrastructure for Norway.
Two details matter for the Ceuta story.
Italy already has internal controls of its own, running from 19 June to 18 December 2026 on its land border with Slovenia, citing terrorist infiltration along the Western Balkan route and smuggling networks. A country demanding another’s exclusion is itself operating the exception.
France’s controls already cover the Spanish border. A French notification running from 1 May to 31 October 2026 applies to all internal borders — land, air and sea — with Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. So when Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said he was stepping up checks at the Spanish frontier and activating the Rapid Border Intervention Force, he was intensifying an existing measure, not creating a new one.
Article 29: the closest thing to what Meloni is asking for
There is one mechanism that comes near to isolating a member state, and it is worth knowing because commentary rarely mentions it.
Article 29 covers exceptional circumstances where the overall functioning of Schengen is put at risk by persistent serious deficiencies in external border control. In that case the Council, acting on a Commission proposal, may recommend that one or more member states reintroduce controls at their internal borders.
Note the shape of it. The failing state is not expelled or suspended. Its neighbours are advised to check their borders with it. The measure lasts up to six months and can be prolonged three times, to a two-year maximum, and is explicitly a last resort.
It also requires the Commission to propose it and the Council to agree — not a single government’s announcement. That is a high bar, and Italy has not cleared it.
Is Ceuta in Schengen?
Yes, with a significant asterisk, and this is where the current story loops back on itself.
Ceuta is Spanish territory, so the Schengen rulebook applies. But Spain carries out identity checks on everyone leaving Ceuta for the mainland or any other Schengen country — and since there is no land route out, that means every departure by sea or air.
That arrangement dates from Spain’s 1991 accession to Schengen. It exists because Moroccan nationals resident in the neighbouring provinces of Tétouan and Nador may enter Ceuta and Melilla without a visa for local border traffic. The exit check is what stops a local exemption from becoming access to the whole area.
The practical effect is worth sitting with: reaching Ceuta does not put anyone inside free-movement Europe. Spain’s Schengen exit control is already the filter that Italy is demanding be created.
What this means if you are travelling
For most travellers, very little changes. Free movement remains the rule and controls are targeted, not systematic. But carry photo identification when crossing an internal border, and allow extra time at the affected crossings.
For British travellers, the more consequential change is not Ceuta but the Entry/Exit System, which became operational at Schengen external borders during 2026. Non-EU nationals now register biometric data — fingerprints and a facial image — instead of receiving passport stamps.
The 90-days-in-any-180 limit for visa-free short stays is unchanged, but it is now tracked automatically rather than by an officer counting stamps. Overstays that once went unnoticed will not.
Frequently asked questions
Can Spain be kicked out of the Schengen area?
No. The Schengen Borders Code contains no expulsion mechanism. Other states can reintroduce checks at their own borders with Spain, and under Article 29 the Council can recommend that they do so, but Spain’s membership itself cannot be revoked by other members.
Has any country ever been suspended from Schengen?
No country has been suspended or expelled. The Article 29 process, which allows the Council to recommend internal controls because of external border failures, was used in relation to Greece in 2016 — but Greece remained a member throughout.
How many Schengen countries have border controls right now?
Eight had controls in force at the end of July 2026: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden. Others have notified controls at points during the year.
How long can these border checks last?
Six months at a time for foreseeable threats, renewable to a two-year ceiling, with a possible extension to three years in major exceptional situations. Unforeseeable threats allow one month immediately, capped at three months in total.
Does Schengen mean the same as the EU?
No. Ireland is in the EU but outside Schengen. Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are in Schengen but not the EU. The two memberships overlap heavily but are not identical.
Do I need my passport inside Schengen?
Legally you must be able to prove your identity, and with controls now in force in several countries, carrying a passport or national ID card is sensible even for journeys that used to involve no checks at all.
Where can I check the current rules?
The European Commission maintains a live table of every notified reintroduction of border control, with dates, reasons and the borders affected. For the events that prompted Italy’s demand, see our report on why people are fleeing Morocco into Ceuta, and our guide to what Ceuta is and where it sits.