{"id":65054,"date":"2026-08-03T08:51:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T08:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/65054\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T08:51:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T08:51:51","slug":"ireland-convenes-meeting-of-eu-ministers-to-discuss-spains-ceuta-crisis-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/65054\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland convenes meeting of EU ministers to discuss Spain\u2019s Ceuta crisis \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

European ministers will meet on Tuesday to discuss the Ceuta crisis<\/a> after last week\u2019s incident where there was a mass border crossing into the Spanish<\/a> enclave in North Africa<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ireland is convening the meeting as part of its presidency of the Council of the European Union<\/a> amid widespread concern over the incident across the bloc. <\/p>\n

More than 50,000 people crossed into the Spanish territory from Morocco<\/a> on Thursday and Friday, with at least 67 people dying in the attempt. Some drowned, while others were crushed as they tried to cross a breakwater barrier. <\/p>\n

Spain has since said that most of those who crossed the border have returned to Morocco.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a>, has denounced what he called a \u201cselfish, polarising and unlawful\u201d reaction from some EU member states to the incident. <\/p>\n

He made the remarks in a letter addressed to European Council<\/a> president Ant\u00f3nio Costa<\/a>, European Commission<\/a> president Ursula von der Leyen<\/a> and Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a>, as Ireland holds the bloc\u2019s rotating presidency.<\/p>\n

It came after some European leaders vowed to impose border checks, if necessary, and even suspend Spain\u2019s participation in Europe\u2019s free-travel zone, the Schengen area.<\/p>\n

Twenty-two EU leaders also wrote to Costa, von der Leyen and Martin requesting an extraordinary meeting of interior ministers to decide on an \u201cimmediate and co-ordinated European response\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings\u201d or \u201cother hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible,\u201d the EU leaders including Italy<\/a>\u2019s Giorgia Meloni<\/a> and Germany<\/a>\u2019s Friedrich Merz<\/a> wrote.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Spain pushes last migrants out of Ceuta as locals suspect US role in \u2018invasion\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Taoiseach confirmed that Ireland would convene a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council on Tuesday to discuss the developments in Ceuta. <\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s meeting, to take place via video-link, will be chaired by Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>. <\/p>\n

On Friday, O\u2019Callaghan asked the Irish EU council presidency team to convene a meeting of the EU\u2019s integrated political crisis response (IPCR) mechanism. <\/p>\n

The IPCR is aimed at supporting rapid and co-ordinated decision-making at EU political level for major crises.<\/p>\n

The meeting went ahead on Saturday and was attended by officials representing EU member states and the European Commission as well as the EU\u2019s border agency Frontex, the European Union Agency for Asylum and Europol<\/a>. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s spokeswoman said \u201cthe IPCR took stock of the situation including the latest updates from the Spanish authorities and EU agencies which indicate that virtually all people who have crossed illegally now having been returned, with no onward movement to the European continent or other member states\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThe shared assessment from EU partners was that the situation has been swiftly brought under control.\u201d \u2013 Additional reporting: Bloomberg; The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European ministers will meet on Tuesday to discuss the Ceuta crisis after last week\u2019s incident where there was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6211,4103,2296,4481,333,26175,8786,865,4446,826,866,26174,26173,2264,205,17,16609],"class_list":["post-65054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-africa","tag-antonio-costa","tag-european-commission","tag-european-council","tag-european-union","tag-europol","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-immigration","tag-italy","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-micheal-martin","tag-morocco","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-spain","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}