Delano D’Souza is pleased to welcome Dr. Manlio Graziano, Founder and Director of Nicholas Spykman International Center for Geopolitical Analysis. Italy’s temporary suspension of the Schengen Agreement with Spain, following the migration episode in Ceuta, is presented less as a meaningful European policy than as a symbolic act driven by domestic politics. Dr Graziano argues that the episode reveals how migration has become an instrument of political positioning rather than policy making. His analysis suggests that Giorgia Meloni’s principal audience is not Brussels or Madrid, but Italy’s increasingly fragmented right, where competition from parties positioned even further to her right is compelling her to continually reaffirm her hardline credentials.