European solidarity has died in Ceuta. The three lessons the EU has yet to learn

Ceuta was not a migrant crisis. The sudden arrival of 60,000 migrants in the Spanish exclave in Africa last week was shocking, but it was handled swiftly and effectively by Pedro Sánchez’s government. In less than 72 hours, virtually all the migrants who had entered the European Union’s borders had been returned to Morocco. But during those 72 hours, Ceuta exposed a serious rift within the EU. At the instigation of the European People’s Party, Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission used Ceuta as a pretext to enter the political arena and challenge a socialist prime minister and his policies on the reception and integration of migrants. On the initiative of Giorgia Meloni and Mette Frederiksen, the vast majority of member state leaders prioritised national electoral interests over solidarity and loyal cooperation. With Ceuta, populist demagoguery has taken the place of the rule of law and solidarity, two of the EU’s cornerstones.

In 2023, when Italy found itself facing the arrival of over 160,000 migrants on its shores, Ursula von der Leyen flew with Meloni to the island of Lampedusa to demonstrate the EU’s solidarity and present a joint action plan designed to help the country in difficulty. “Irregular migration is a European challenge and requires a European response,” said the Commission President. Emmanuel Macron’s government in France, an ideological opponent of Meloni, had expressed its support for Italy. “Today is first and foremost a time for solidarity and also for the EU to mobilise in support,” said the then French Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne. Germany, which had only just suspended its asylum seeker relocation programme with Italy due to Meloni’s refusal to comply with the Dublin rules, immediately reinstated it. What a contrast with Ceuta!

On 31 July, von der Leyen used social media platform X to describe the images from the Spanish exclave as “unacceptable”. “We cannot allow anyone to enter our Union without respecting our rules.” A few minutes earlier, Sánchez had described the entry of over 60,000 migrants from Morocco as “an attack, a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity”. The word “solidarity” does not appear in von der Leyen’s post. It was not uttered by any Commissioner until the end of the Ceuta crisis. By contrast, the Commission President said she was “confident that our close partnership with Morocco” would yield “concrete results.” As if Rabat were more trustworthy than Madrid.

According to several analysts, the government in Rabat is partly to blame for the crisis in Ceuta. Morocco is responsible for controlling the border. And, according to dozens of accounts, it has facilitated, if not encouraged, people crossing into Ceuta. This is not the first time Morocco has used migratory pressure as a weapon of political blackmail against Madrid. In 2021, another ‘invasion’ was orchestrated, when the Spanish government authorised the admission to a hospital in Spain of Brahim Ghali, President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and leader of the Western Sahara secessionist movement. More than 8,000 migrants crossed the border. On 20 July, Sánchez made his first visit to Algeria in four years to revive diplomatic and economic ties (as well as cooperation on migration). The regime in Rabat did not tolerate Sánchez’s rapprochement with the rival Algerian regime. Just over a week later, 60,000 Moroccans poured into Ceuta.

In 2021, the Spanish government had responded to the ‘invasion’ by mobilising the army and using an agreement with Morocco to rapidly repatriate those who had crossed the border. It did the same in 2026. The Commission and the Member States could have waited to see how the situation on the ground developed. Instead, the EPP and Giorgia Meloni’s government reacted immediately, using Ceuta as a pretext to attack Sánchez. Von der Leyen’s post on X partly echoed that published the day before by the EPP’s president, Manfred Weber. “The devastating images are the direct consequence of the pull factor created by mass regularisation,” Weber wrote on X on 30 July. On the same day, the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, who is also vice-president of the EPP, proposed suspending Spain from the Schengen area of free movement. Several countries where the far right is in power or in governing coalitions with the EPP – such as the Czech Republic and Finland – echoed this call.

On 31 July, Giorgia Meloni did indeed announce the reintroduction of air and sea border controls between Italy and Spain. The measure is pointless and intended purely for electoral show. Checks are carried out on a random basis and – according to sources at the Italian Ministry of the Interior – will not affect European passengers. Furthermore, anyone travelling from Ceuta to Spain or the European mainland must undergo identity document checks: the two African exclaves do not, in fact, belong to the Schengen Area. The Commission itself has had to admit that none of the 60,000 migrants who arrived in the Spanish exclave entered the European mainland. However, on Saturday 1 August, Meloni and the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, launched a new initiative that reveals the aim of their campaign: a letter signed by 22 leaders denouncing the mass regularisation programme carried out by Sánchez in the first six months of the year, which saw over a million migrants granted legal status.

Only France, Portugal, Ireland and Luxembourg refused to sign the letter from Meloni and Frederiksen. The 22 accuse Sánchez of “creating the perception that illegal entry into the EU is possible” and “that a migrant’s illegal entry could lead to legal residence”, the letter states. Meloni and Frederiksen had already launched an initial attack against the Spanish Socialist Prime Minister at the European Council in June. They had used language bordering on racism to justify their positions – the Danish Prime Minister had called for Africans to be sent back to their own countries – whilst Sánchez had explained that the regularisation scheme largely concerned migrants from South America.

The regularisation of irregular migrants is a strictly national competence. Moreover, regularised migrants cannot move freely within the rest of the EU. Experts agree that Sánchez’s regularisation programme is not the cause of the second ‘invasion’ of Ceuta: the process has already been completed and there will be no further such programme in Spain before next year’s elections. Conversely, excluding Spain from Schengen is not legally possible. The reintroduction of border controls within the Schengen Area is permitted only in the event of a ‘serious threat’. According to the former EU High Representative, Josep Borrell, Italy and other Member States have ‘abused the EU legal framework in flagrant violation of the principle of sincere cooperation to which they are bound’.

The von der Leyen Commission, rather than reminding the Meloni government of the Schengen rules, or denying the ‘pull factor’ effect of Spain’s regularisation measures in Ceuta, has remained silent. The Commissioner for Home Affairs, Magnus Brunner, also a member of the EPP, struck a firm tone: ‘The situation in Ceuta is unacceptable,’ he wrote on X. This presents a paradox. From 2022 to 2026, Sánchez’s Spain fared much better than Meloni’s Italy in managing irregular migration flows: half the number of arrivals and a third more returns to countries of origin. The Commission’s first report on the implementation of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, published in July, commends Spain, whilst highlighting that the Meloni government is still not complying with the rules on the transfer of migrants who have fled to other Member States.

Pedro Sánchez also wrote a letter on Ceuta on 1 August. Meloni and other leaders are “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political self-interest” in opposition to “the principles of solidarity that bind us together”, wrote Sánchez. The only leader of an EU institution to express “solidarity with Spain” at the height of the Ceuta crisis was the President of the European Council, the Portuguese socialist António Costa. Unlike von der Leyen, Costa also set out the facts. “Third-country nationals in Ceuta do not enjoy freedom of movement to mainland Spain or the rest of the Schengen area,” wrote the President of the European Council. “Spain’s firm response, which includes ongoing accelerated repatriations, demonstrates our determination to protect our external borders,” he added.

Von der Leyen and Costa have swapped roles on the Ceuta issue. The President of the European Council – who normally speaks out only when there is consensus amongst the 27 member states – has defended a leader under attack from 22 other heads of government, basing her arguments on facts and the law. The Commission President ignored the reality on the ground and the treaties in order to take part in a political campaign orchestrated by the European right and far right and fuelled by actors hostile to the EU, such as Russia, the MAGA movement and part of the Israeli government.

It was only once the crisis was over that von der Leyen finally used the word ‘solidarity’. “Tackling illegal migration requires solidarity and a united European response,” the Commission President wrote on X. “We need a process of learning from this to improve our European resilience,” von der Leyen added. A meeting of interior ministers is scheduled for tomorrow via videoconference, preceded by a meeting of the ambassadors of the 27 Member States today.

The Ceuta crisis offers many lessons. The first is that the outsourcing of border management to questionable regimes, supported by the Commission, subjects the EU and its member states to constant political blackmail. The Sánchez government did not wish to explicitly attribute the ‘attack’ to Morocco in order to avoid exacerbating the crisis and to ensure that Rabat would take back its citizens. In Morocco, the financial aid provided by the EU in exchange for cooperation on migration flows is being used by a regime contested by young people due to a lack of reforms and future prospects. Italy, Greece and the Commission avoid openly criticising Kais Saied’s regime in Tunisia or the militias governing Libya for fear of retaliatory measures affecting migration. This is not a demonstration of European sovereignty.

The second lesson is that the new Pact on Migration and Asylum is not designed for crisis situations. The situation in Ceuta was resolved swiftly by the Sánchez government, without having to call on Frontex and without any consequences for the rest of the EU. But if Spain had been faced with a prolonged emergency, it would have been impossible to apply the new border and return procedures to 60,000 people in Ceuta and hold them in closed centres on the mainland as provided for in the Pact. The panicked reaction of the Commission and some Member States shows that the ‘magic wand’ of the Pact on Migration and Asylum would simply have failed.

The third and most important lesson is political and institutional in nature and risks having wider-reaching consequences. The von der Leyen Commission has abandoned its role as an impartial arbiter and guardian of the Treaties to enter the arena of partisan politics. By exploiting the Ceuta situation to attack Sánchez and curry favour with their own electorate, certain national leaders are seriously undermining the principle of European solidarity. “If Europeans cannot rely on one another when a Member State is under pressure at the EU’s external border, what confidence should they have that solidarity will prevail when the threat is military rather than migratory?”, asked Professor Alberto Alemanno.

Spain, despite Sánchez’s pacifism, supports Ukraine. It was also at the forefront of defending Denmark when Donald Trump threatened to annex Greenland. Sánchez was explicit in his letter: “In the current international context, the EU cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and illegal reaction.” On Saturday, Trump assured that Greenland would be under American control by the end of his term. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, revealed “an intense Russian propaganda campaign across Europe using images from Ceuta to sow destabilisation”. Sybiha pointed out that for years “Moscow has been using migration and other sensitive issues to fuel fear and destabilise European countries.”

The response from Meloni, Frederiksen and von der Leyen regarding Ceuta shows that lessons have not yet been learnt.