{"id":65557,"date":"2026-08-04T08:32:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T08:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/65557\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T08:32:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T08:32:31","slug":"von-der-leyen-rallies-to-support-spain-after-ceuta-crisis-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/65557\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen rallies to support Spain after Ceuta crisis \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMigration is a European challenge that requires a European response,\u201d she wrote. \u201cAnd in this, solidarity is fundamental.\u201d The Commission, she said, had offered Spain financial and operational support, with Frontex, Europol and the EU asylum agency ready to assist. <\/p>\n<p>Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner on Friday\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/magnusbrunner\/status\/2082874956648484922\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">told<\/a>\u00a0Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska that the bloc was willing to \u201cincrease support for Spain\u201d to \u201ccontrol the situation,\u201d and to deploy members of Frontex, the EU agency that supports member countries in monitoring and managing the EU\u2019s external borders, to Ceuta.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Frontex currently has staff deployed in Ceuta, as well as on the Canary Islands and parts of the Andalusian coastline. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2287709883-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8834836\"  \/>An official watches as people gather at the border between Morocco and Spain on July 31, 2026. | Abdel Majid Bziouat\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Madrid has repeatedly declined to request that the agency\u2019s presence in Spain be increased, insisting that border control falls under the jurisdiction of national authorities. Following a surge in migrant arrivals to Ceuta in 2021, and an increase in arrivals to the Canary Islands in 2024, Spain\u2019s interior ministry\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/elpais.com\/expres\/2024-09-28\/nuevo-choque-entre-el-ministerio-del-interior-y-frontex-por-la-situacion-en-canarias-y-no-parece-tener-solucion-a-corto-plazo.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">rejected calls<\/a>\u00a0to ask for Frontex\u2019s support, insisting it had sufficient resources to manage the situation.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We must do more\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Von der Leyen said the incident had exposed weaknesses in the bloc\u2019s border management. \u201cIt is clear that we must do more to further strengthen our borders at critical points,\u201d the Commission president wrote, including through \u201cvigilant monitoring and the use of physical barriers where needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She outlined five priorities: preventing irregular migration through stronger cooperation with partner countries, reinforcing the EU\u2019s external borders, establishing early-warning systems, dismantling smuggling networks, and improving returns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMigration is a European challenge that requires a European response,\u201d she wrote. \u201cAnd in this, solidarity is fundamental.\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[191,203,2264,205,17,209,16609],"class_list":["post-65557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-borders","tag-migration","tag-morocco","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-spain","tag-spanish-politics","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65557","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=65557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}