Ceuta exposed the bargain beneath Europe’s border: Spain retains an African empire, Morocco keeps it governable, and Brussels mistakes outsourced control for strategy. Turkey weaponises migration; Rabat commits the more humiliating failure, discounting national power into grants, endorsements and reassurance, leaving Morocco indispensable in practice but subordinate by choice.
The mass crossing into Ceuta in recent days killed dozens, overwhelmed the city and shocked Europe. Tens of thousands entered within hours, driven largely by economic despair and online falsehoods. Spain deployed troops; Morocco sealed the approaches, blocked further attempts and received most of those who returned. [1]
The scale was exceptional. The lesson was not. Europe’s African frontier may be legally Spanish, but it is operationally Moroccan.
A nation state has the right to defend its borders, preserve its character and regulate admission. Border authority is not a retreat from liberal democracy but its precondition.
Not every person seeking work, security or opportunity qualifies for asylum. Asylum protects the persecuted; labour migration is a policy choice; unlawful entry creates no entitlement. When Europe conflates them, it devalues asylum, corrodes public consent and cedes border politics to the extremes. Liberalism cannot preserve itself by abolishing distinctions in its own name.
The European Union has codified that distinction. Its Migration and Asylum Pact, applicable from June 2026, relies on screening at the external frontier, differentiated procedures and faster decisions. [2] Schengen did not abolish borders; it externalised them. Internal freedom rests on external control. Ceuta is where that principle becomes physical.
Enforcement, however, does not sanctify every inherited frontier.
Ceuta and Melilla are not products of Spain’s twentieth-century protectorate in Morocco. Spanish rule predates it by centuries, both cities are integrated into Spain’s constitutional order and their inhabitants are Spanish citizens. [3] Madrid therefore possesses a serious legal case. It lacks a coherent strategic one.
Ceuta and Melilla carry strategic weight, not strategic value. Value expands freedom of action; weight consumes forces, attention and political capital. The enclaves do not project Spanish power into Africa; they expose Spain to pressure from the mainland. Their land access, economic hinterland and daily viability depend on Morocco. Spain governs the territory; Rabat controls many of the conditions that keep it manageable.
A rumour can become an influx; a lapse, a European crisis. These are liabilities, not forward positions.
Spain’s claim to Gibraltar is legitimate; so is Morocco’s claim to Ceuta and Melilla. Their legal histories differ: Gibraltar remains on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories, [4] while the African enclaves are integrated into Spain’s constitutional system. That distinction matters in law; it cannot sustain opposite principles.
Shay Gal outside Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid. (Courtesy of the author)
Spain cannot demand reconsideration of an imperial enclave on its own coast while denying the same principle to two enclaves on the African coast. Legitimacy creates a claim to dialogue, not a right of automatic transfer. Any settlement must preserve citizenship, property, identity and democratic consent. Europe should defend the frontier today without declaring it sacred forever.
The standard accusation is that Morocco weaponises migration to extract too much from Europe. The charge has precedent: after the 2021 Ceuta crisis, [5] migration blackmail became Europe’s default explanation for disruption at the Moroccan frontier.
Turkey demonstrates what migration coercion is. Ankara repeatedly threatened to open the gates and in 2020 stopped preventing migrants from moving towards the Greek frontier. [6] It converted human mobility into explicit state pressure. Ceuta exposed the inverse failure: Spain acknowledged Moroccan cooperation, and most entrants returned to Morocco. [7]
Turkey weaponises dependence; Morocco underprices indispensability.
Shay Gal during a speaking engagement in Rabat, Morocco. (Courtesy of the author)
Morocco supplies Europe with strategic stability. It polices routes, dismantles networks, shares intelligence and absorbs pressures European governments cannot contain. Yet Rabat allows that indispensability to be denominated in grants, programmes and assurances. [8]
Rabat has secured substantial diplomatic gains, particularly over Western Sahara. [9] But declarations are not architecture, and recognition on one file is not national power. Moroccan foreign policy repeatedly converts structural leverage into transactional returns: geography into aid, stability into assurances and indispensability into endorsements from individual capitals.
This is more than underpricing. It is strategic self-subordination. A dependency negotiates transfers; a power designs order. Morocco is no vassal, yet it still bargains for recognition where it should demand integration, and for reassurance where it should shape the regional system.
That choice sustains the charge Rabat resents. A paid gatekeeper makes every lapse look like blackmail and every demand like a surcharge.
Morocco should stop negotiating the fee and start defining the relationship: industrial integration, reciprocal investment, legal mobility, energy and infrastructure interdependence, privileged market access and a formal role in shaping the Western Mediterranean order. It does not need to weaponise instability. It needs to price stability.
The territorial question requires the same discipline. Europe must enforce the current border. Spain and Morocco should establish a standing dialogue on future status, border administration and regional integration. Rabat must renounce border pressure as an instrument; Madrid must renounce the fiction that constitutional incorporation ended history.
Security without sanctification. Negotiation without coercion. No settlement without consent.
The liberal order will endure not by erasing frontiers, but by distinguishing the borders it must defend from the empires it need not.
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[1] Reuters and Times of Israel staff, “Morocco Blames Misinformation for Ceuta Migrant Rush; Israel Conspiracy Theories Spread”, The Times of Israel, August 3, 2026.
[2] European Commission, “New Migration and Asylum Rules Enter into Application: What Is Changing?”, June 12, 2026.
[3] Jamie Trinidad, “An Evaluation of Morocco’s Claims to Spain’s Remaining Territories in Africa”, International & Comparative Law Quarterly 61, no. 4 (October 2012): 961–975.
[4] United Nations, “Special Decolonization Committee Approves 3 Drafts Aimed at Bolstering UN’s Support for Non-Self-Governing Territories”, June 15, 2026.
[5] European Parliament, “Human Rights Breaches at the Spanish/Moroccan Border, in Russia and in Sri Lanka”, June 10, 2021.
[6] “UN Says 13,000 Migrants Mass at Turkey’s Border with Greece”, The Times of Israel, March 1, 2020.
[7] Agencies, “Tens of Thousands of Migrants Breach Ceuta, a Spanish Enclave in North Africa; 34 Said Dead”, The Times of Israel, July 31, 2026.
[8] European Commission, “European Commission and Morocco Launch Renewed Partnership on Migration and Tackling Human Smuggling Networks”, July 8, 2022.
[9] Agencies and Times of Israel staff, “France Shifts Western Sahara Stance, Seeking Closer Ties with Morocco”, The Times of Israel, July 30, 2024.
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Related by the same author:
“Turkey Didn’t Join the EU. It Penetrated It.”, To Vima, February 11, 2026.
“Morocco’s Quiet Conclusion: Somaliland Recognition Locks In Its Sahara File”, The Times of Israel, February 14, 2026.
“Turkey Exploits Ambiguity. Qatar Funds It. Morocco Operates Within It – At a Cost”, The Times of Israel, April 24, 2026.
“Europe Funds Moscow Through Algiers, Pays Ankara’s Toll, and Calls It Diversification”, To Vima, July 25, 2026.
Shay Gal is Founder & Principal of Line of State, an international strategic practice for strategic affairs, government relations and public power. He served as VP of External Relations at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and previously held roles across Israel’s political system, including in the Knesset and government. His work with governments, security establishments, institutions, companies and decision-makers focuses on hard strategic files where policy, power, access, communications, intelligence and public legitimacy converge.