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Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has hit out at other EU governments after they criticised his country’s handling of an influx of migrants, as divisions over the bloc’s migration policy deepened.
In a letter to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council chief António Costa on Saturday, Sánchez criticised reactions “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest” and called for an urgent meeting of European officials to address the crisis.
In a competing letter, 22 EU leaders implicitly criticised Spain, expressing “serious concern” about the situation in Ceuta, one of its two enclaves on the coast of north Africa, and also called for a meeting of home affairs ministers.
About 60,000 people entered Ceuta in the space of 24 hours this week, one of the biggest influxes of unauthorised immigrants in EU history. At least 67 people died in the attempt, according to the Spanish interior ministry.
EU home affairs commissioner Magnus Brunner said on Friday evening that “practically all those who had entered Ceuta have returned” and that “not a single person has crossed to mainland EU”.
Several rightwing governments and far-right politicians blamed the influx on the Spanish government for encouraging immigration, and called for restrictions on freedom of movement within the bloc. The Italian government said on Friday it would carry out additional security checks on non-EU passengers arriving from Spain.
Sánchez is Europe’s most senior pro-immigration leader. This year he launched an amnesty for unauthorised immigrants that has drawn 1.2mn applications from people seeking legal status.
But speaking in Ceuta on Saturday, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Spain’s interior minister, sought to shoot down far-right suggestions that the people who surged into the territory could benefit from the amnesty. “They have no option to regularise their status,” he said.
Grande-Marlaska also echoed Sánchez’s rebuttal of criticism from other governments, saying: “There are other countries that have actually shown a completely selfish, unsupportive and irresponsible attitude.”
In his letter, Sánchez expressed “serious concern regarding the recent reaction that some European governments have shown following the incident that took place at the external border of the European Union in Ceuta”.
“In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” he wrote. “Such an attitude — driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest — is . . . contrary to European law, humanitarian law and the principles of solidarity that bind us together.”
In the letter, which was also addressed to Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin who holds the rotating EU presidency, he called for a video conference of EU home affairs ministers to discuss the situation.
In their letter to von der Leyen, Costa and Martin, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Austria’s Christian Stocker, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and others wrote: “We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalisation of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible.”
The influx of migrants to Ceuta came after the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that different deportation rules applied to immigrants arriving by sea, rather than crossing a land border. Rightwing and far-right politicians also blamed Spain’s illegal migration amnesty.
The European leaders wrote: “The recent ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court has been used to trigger this attack and abuse our migration and asylum system . . . we have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration by co-ordinating our action, strengthening our external borders and addressing all policies that can serve as pull factors, such as the regularisation of a very large number of irregular migrants.”
Von der Leyen endorsed the meeting proposal. “The vast majority of those who arrived illegally have returned to Morocco, due to the effective work of Spanish and Moroccan law enforcement. Not a single person reached mainland Spain or the rest of the EU,” she wrote in a post on X.
“This shows why the control of our European borders matters. We have a strong system in place. But it needs to be further strengthened.”
On Saturday morning, Spanish authorities in Ceuta began to construct barriers in the water to deter fresh arrivals.
In his letter to Costa, Sánchez said: “There are almost no irregular migrants left unreturned.” But on the streets of Ceuta overnight, dozens of young men from Morocco continued to mill around. Groups of Spanish soldiers leaning against Humvee-type vehicles watched them.
“There are a few left, but they’re kids. We can’t do anything about kids,” said one.
Further down the road, other soldiers were stopping young men and asking “Are you Spanish?”
