{"id":80239,"date":"2026-09-03T20:29:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/80239\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T20:29:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:29:33","slug":"eu-commission-has-open-questions-for-spain-on-request-for-frontex-to-expand-in-ceuta-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/80239\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Commission has \u2018open questions\u2019 for Spain on request for Frontex to expand in Ceuta \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spain will need to answer \u201cimportant open questions\u201d about how an expanded mission of Frontex, the EU\u2019s border agency, would\u00a0operate\u00a0on the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, the EU Commission said on Thursday (3 September)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The commission confirmed that\u00a0Spain\u00a0had\u00a0last week\u00a0requested\u00a0a permanent presence for the Frontex in Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in north Africa which borders Morocco\u00a0and saw a surge in border crossings on 30 and 31 July.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/audiovisual.ec.europa.eu\/en\/media\/video\/I-293876\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">commission\u00a0spokesperson\u00a0told reporters<\/a>\u00a0that the EU executive was\u00a0\u201cadvancing on\u00a0the assessment of these requests as a priority\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He added that for the commission\u2019s final assessment, \u201csome important open questions \u2026 will need to be answered by the Spanish authorities first\u201d,\u00a0without providing more details.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere is already a Frontex presence in Ceuta in the ports. This is about what other areas\u00a0might need Frontex support,\u201d\u00a0said the commission spokesperson.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\u00a0commission says that it\u00a0immediately\u00a0offered\u00a0extra financial and agency support\u00a0via Frontex and Europol\u00a0to Spanish authorities\u00a0following the mass border crossing of\u00a075,000 people\u00a0in late July.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although\u00a0Spanish authorities say that around 70,000 migrants were returned to Morocco within a week of the crossing, the breach of the border prompted angry criticism of the Spanish government from the likes of Italy\u00a0and the Netherlands.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/euobserver.com\/233614\/brussels-backs-spain-on-ceuta-with-new-funds-while-madrid-issues-warning-to-morocco\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9b7d0fdae9396e5e33c01f6b8cfd2778-600x379.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Italy has imposed border controls on arrivals from Spain until 15 September,  while France has increased police checks close to its land border with Spain. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Madrid, Spain\u2019s prime minister Pedro\u00a0S\u00e1nchez\u00a0continues to face heavy political pressure about the government\u2019s response to the Ceuta crisis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Wednesday, tens of thousands of people protested in Ceuta and other Spanish cities against the government\u2019s handling of the border crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">S\u00e1nchez faced a barrage of criticism in Spain&#8217;s Congress of Deputies on Thursday, with opposition MPs demanding his resignation and even some allies within his minority government coalition voicing discontent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain will need to answer \u201cimportant open questions\u201d about how an expanded mission of Frontex, the EU\u2019s border&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2564,25764,2576,26355,30100,30098,25762,26353,2574,17,30099,25763,26354,2575],"class_list":["post-80239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier23","tag-identifier4279","tag-identifier4301","tag-identifier4576","tag-namefrontex","tag-namemigration","tag-namemorocco","tag-namespain","tag-spain","tag-termcodefrontex","tag-termcodemigration","tag-termcodemorocco","tag-termcodespain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80239","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=80239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80239\/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=80239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}