Millions of people try to reach Europe, now turned into a kind of promised land fortified and defended by barbed wire or by thousands of miles of uncertain seas where finding death is very common.
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The European agency responsible for preventing people from reaching Europe is Frontex. But despite the barbed wire and the billions that Europe spends on the riparian governments to contain migratory flows according to Frontex’s own calculations, through the three Mediterranean routes – which are by no means the only and most frequented – more than 3.3 million people have arrived on the Continent from 2009 to the present day.
In the Mediterranean there is basically the Greek route – through which thousands of Syrians fleeing the war arrived. Then, the second route is the coasts of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria… from which people disembark in Italy, particularly in Lampedusa; and finally, the third route is the entire Spanish coastline to which Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canary Islands must be added, European territories in Africa.
Of these three routes, according to Frontex, Italy is currently the one that receives the most illegal entries by sea. The government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni, which made immigration one of its banners in the elections, has not managed to prevent thousands of citizens from Africa and also from the Middle East from continuing to arrive on its territory every month. According to the latest verified estimates from Frontex in 2026, the central Mediterranean migration route, the one corresponding to Italy, already totals more than 16,000 people.
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The western route, the one corresponding to Spain, has remained at 11,000, to which 4,000 from the Atlantic route, that of the Canary Islands, can be added, which would put us close to Italy’s figures…
In any case, nothing seems to indicate that the Spanish regularization has caused a call effect. Rather, it can be concluded that immigrants do not care at all about policies whether they are open or closed doors. These figures also show that these illegal access routes are a trifle compared to the number of foreign citizens who manage to end up living among us and who generally arrive by plane with visas that are almost never renewed.
So, one might ask: does the restriction of the Schengen area make any sense? It does not seem so unless what is wanted is to scare away the 5.7 million Spanish tourists who in 2024 visit Italy or the 5.6 million Italian tourists who traveled in the opposite direction. Frankly, if that is the idea, it does not seem very good.
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