European Union interior ministers held an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the Ceuta crisis, which had raised tensions throughout the bloc last week and through the weekend, and saw\u00a0the Spanish bishops condemning the use of migration as a \u201cweapon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The emergency video conference followed the surge that saw more than 60 thousand migrants charge the frontier of the autonomous peninsular Spanish city on the North African side of the Strait of Gibraltar last week, and included a Spanish delegation and the European Commission.<\/p>\n
At least 72 migrants perished during the surge between Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Pope prays for Ceuta as city reels from mass migrant incursion<\/a><\/p>\n Spain\u2019s government has come under heavy fire from other countries in the EU, with Italy temporarily suspending its borderless travel arrangement with Spain under the EU\u2019s Schengen Agreement.<\/p>\n Spain\u2019s socialist government is widely seen as having a more open \u2013 even permissive \u2013 immigration policy than many other EU nations, and in January of this year announced plans to grant legal status to potentially hundreds of thousands of persons already living and working in the country without authorization.<\/p>\n Further, critics also pointed to a recent court ruling that Spain cannot immediately return people who enter the country by swimming.<\/p>\n An EU official told Crux Now the meeting was \u201cconstructive,\u201d and said member states \u201cexplained the reasoning behind their policy decisions, whilst at the same time looking for areas that could be further improved\u201d in reference to the controversy that erupted in the EU following the weekend\u2019s events.<\/p>\n \u201cThis process will now continue with further discussions on migration-related topics at the next formal JHA Council in October and the European Council that month,\u201d the official added.<\/p>\n Jim O\u2019Callaghan, Irish minister for justice, home affairs and migration said the EU \u201cis united and stands ready to support Spain and protect our external borders from illegal migration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe commend Spain for their swift response to the situation in Ceuta and extend our deepest condolences for the tragic loss of life. The EU\u2019s external borders are our shared responsibility, and migration requires a united European response,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s meeting which I convened provided an important opportunity for member states to assess the tools already at our disposal, identify where further cooperation is needed, and advance our collective preparations ahead of the next ministerial meeting and the European Council in October,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Spain\u2019s bishops respond<\/p>\n Since the crisis took place, the Spanish bishops have shared their opinions, with many of them warning against migration being used as a political weapon following rampant speculation about how and why the crisis took place.\u00a0<\/p>\n Archbishop Luis Arg\u00fcello of Valladolid, and president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), took to X on Aug. 2 to warn of the Ceuta \u201cinvasion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBiopolitics is key to current global power. Life is toyed with, and people \u2014 their dreams, hunger, sexuality, and data \u2014 are exploited for the sake of profit and power,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMigration is part of this strategy. The invasion of Ceuta is a test. Demography is a weapon,\u201d the prelate added.<\/p>\n Bishop Xavier Gomez, OP, who is the official responsible for Migration and Interculturality for the Tarraconense Episcopal Conference, released a statement, saying Spain wasn\u2019t \u201cfacing an ordinary migration crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore, we must honestly ask ourselves: who can benefit from this situation? It does not benefit the people who have thrown themselves into the sea, many driven by structural poverty, economic inequality, lack of work and the frustration of a blocked future in Morocco or in other African countries wounded by war or famine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cNor does it benefit the citizens of Ceuta and Melilla, to whom we want to express our solidarity, and who have the right to live in security, without shocks and with peaceful coexistence,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Echoing Arg\u00fcello, Gomez highlighted the role of \u201cthose who use human mobility as an instrument of political pressure\u201d and also \u201cthose who want to strain diplomatic relations with possible \u2018hybrid threats\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Gomez finished by echoing the recent comments by Pope Leo XIV.<\/p>\n \u201cPope Leo XIV, in the Canary Islands, put evangelical words to this wound: \u2018So many wounded lives arrive here, stripped of almost everything, but never of their dignity\u2019,\u201d Gomez said.<\/p>\n Father Fernando Redondo Pav\u00f3n, director of the Department of Migration of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, warned the event shouldn\u2019t be used as a \u201cpolitical weapon\u201d to \u201ccriminalize migrants\u201d or \u201cstoke fear.\u201d<\/p>\n Leo himself prayed on Sunday \u201cthat, through the intercession of Our Lady of Africa, solutions may be found to bring peace, stability and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n A social media-driven surge<\/p>\n Also on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported \u201crunaway online rumors\u201d as a chief catalyst for the deadly surge.<\/p>\n The Moroccan interior ministry has also blamed the \u201cexploitation of the digital sphere\u201d and \u201cthe spread of misinformation,\u201d and has said there is an open investigation into the spread of the rumors.<\/p>\n RELATED: Runaway online rumors sparked frantic rush by migrants to the Spanish territory of Ceuta<\/a><\/p>\n Spain\u2019s foreign ministry last week also blamed online misinformation as a factor in the surge.<\/p>\n Ceuta officials said they had warned the Spanish government of a surge in arrivals before the massive crush on Thursday of last week, but the Spanish interior ministry said Monday that it had not received \u201cany report or warning regarding the mass arrival of people in Ceuta.\u201d<\/p>\n Spain\u2019s interior ministry also praised Moroccan authorities for their cooperation in seeing most of the migrants returned to the Moroccan side of the border.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ______<\/p>\n You are reading this\u00a0Crux Now\u00a0article for free. 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To find out more about why becoming a\u00a0Crux Now\u00a0supporter is a great idea, go\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European Union interior ministers held an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the Ceuta crisis, which had raised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11156,11157,273,17,10165],"class_list":["post-65800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-catholic","tag-independent","tag-news","tag-spain","tag-vatican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65800","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=65800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}