{"id":65771,"date":"2026-08-04T15:57:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/65771\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T15:57:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:57:29","slug":"spain-blames-criminal-mafias-for-ceuta-mass-border-crossing-as-eu-offers-solidarity-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/65771\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain blames \u2018criminal mafias\u2019 for Ceuta mass border crossing as EU offers \u2018solidarity\u2019 \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain blamed \u201ccriminal mafias\u201d\u00a0for last week\u2019s storming of the border at Ceuta, the city which borders Morocco,\u00a0but insisted that\u00a0almost all\u00a0of the 72,000 migrants who breached the border had been returned to Morocco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking after an emergency meeting of EU home affairs ministers\u00a0on Tuesday (4 August), Spain\u2019s\u00a0interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska\u00a0said<\/a> about 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta\u00a0last Thursday and Friday,\u00a0and that\u00a0around 70,000 had since returned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the process of resolving the legal status of those who remain in Spain, and those who are not entitled to stay will be returned in accordance with Spanish and international law,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also described the outcome of Tuesday\u2019s extraordinary meeting as \u201csatisfactory\u201d and said it \u201cserved to recognise Spain\u2019s efforts\u201d. <\/p>\n

The border storming\u00a0has\u00a0caused a major diplomatic row, with Italy, Finland and Denmark calling for Spain\u2019s membership of the Schengen free movement area to be suspended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

France imposed\u00a0additional\u00a0controls at its land border with Spain, while the government of Meloni suspended the Schengen border-free travel agreement with Spain for one month, reintroducing temporary border checks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After the emergency meeting of EU home affairs ministers on Tuesday, EU migration commissioner Magnus\u00a0Brunner\u00a0told reporters<\/a> that the\u00a0events\u00a0\u201cwere a test of our European resilience on the one hand and of the security of our external borders\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that\u00a0\u201cthere\u00a0was full solidarity with Spain\u201d\u00a0from EU ministers\u00a0and that the online meeting had been a\u00a0\u201cuseful\u00a0opportunity to clarify the facts on the ground\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Europe, I think, has definitely passed this test. People did not manage to enter the Schengen area, and security at the border was resolved quickly,” he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u00a0mattered,\u00a0the situation was brought back under control,\u201d he also said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though a group of EU leaders had accused Spain of negligence in policing the border, and\u00a022 of the EU-27 signed\u00a0a joint letter demanding far stricter controls of the bloc\u2019s external borders.<\/p>\n

Spanish and EU officials attributed the crossing to\u00a0criminal smuggling networks and disinformation, falling short on providing details. <\/p>\n

Madrid, meanwhile, has urged Rabat to investigate the events\u00a0behind the mass crossing into the enclave of Ceuta.<\/p>\n

‘Dramatic images beat the best statistics’<\/p>\n

In June,\u00a0new stricter\u00a0EU rules on detention and deportation of rejected asylum seekers and economic migrants came into force. They give police forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brunner was also at\u00a0pains\u00a0to point to statistics showing a sharp drop in irregular migrant numbers. <\/p>\n

He told reporters that illegal migration\u00a0had\u00a0decreased by 55 percent over the past two years\u00a0and that just over 49,000\u00a0irregular migrants had\u00a0crossed\u00a0into EU territory this year, which, he said, was\u00a0roughly the\u00a0same number as crossed\u00a0to\u00a0the Greek islands in a single week in 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Germany, numbers are down by more than a third this year, Sweden registered the lowest numbers in 40 years\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBy any measure, Europe has not had\u00a0this much\u00a0control over illegal migration in a decade,\u201d said Brunner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the Austrian commissioner conceded that \u201cthe events in Ceuta show that dramatic images beat the best statistics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brunner\u00a0said\u00a0that the EU executive had provided emergency financial support to Spain and that the bloc\u2019s border agency\u00a0Frontex\u00a0now\u00a0had\u00a0more than 30 people in Ceuta.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Officials from\u00a0Europol and\u00a0the EU\u2019s\u00a0asylum agency\u00a0were also\u00a0ready to\u00a0assist, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The border storming was the biggest crisis at the Spanish enclaves on the African continent since 2021 and could have major implications for Morocco\u2019s relations with the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Morocco has\u00a0emerged\u00a0as the EU\u2019s most reliable ally in North Africa in recent years, but Brunner hinted at the price which Rabat could face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to use our leverage …we are currently in the process of negotiating a strategic partnership agreement with Morocco…and migration is one of the core elements of this agreement,\u201d\u00a0he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain blamed \u201ccriminal mafias\u201d\u00a0for last week\u2019s storming of the border at Ceuta, the city which borders Morocco,\u00a0but insisted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2564,25764,2576,26355,25762,26353,2574,17,25763,26354,2575],"class_list":["post-65771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier23","tag-identifier4279","tag-identifier4301","tag-namemigration","tag-namemorocco","tag-namespain","tag-spain","tag-termcodemigration","tag-termcodemorocco","tag-termcodespain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65771","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=65771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}