Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is under fire over his handling of the illegal migrant invasion of the two Spanish enclaves in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, with 22 European leaders demanding coordinated action against the country’s mass migrant regularization programme.
In a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, the leaders said the bloc must strengthen its external borders and address policies that serve as migration ‘pull factors’.
‘We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible. That a migrant’s illegal entry can turn into legal stay,’ they wrote, calling for an emergency video conference of interior ministers.
The letter was signed by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the leaders of 20 other member states, spanning conservative, nationalist, liberal and centre-left governments. The signatories said they were ready to reinforce or restore ‘temporary border controls’ within the Schengen area.
Italy has already introduced selective checks on non-EU nationals arriving from Spain by air and sea, while France has reinforced controls along its Spanish border. The measures followed the influx of between 50,000 and 60,000 people, mostly young men from Morocco, into Ceuta on Thursday and Friday, most of whom have since returned, according to the government. Social media reports, however, suggest that the number of returned migrants is far lower than official claims and that there is still disorder on the streets of Ceuta. At least 67 people died during the crossings.
Madrid rejected the claim that its regularization scheme caused the crisis. Spain’s foreign ministry said the programme applied only to migrants who could prove they were present in the country before 1 January 2026 and had lived there continuously for at least five months. Applications closed on 30 June, meaning those who entered Ceuta this week are ineligible.
Spanish authorities and the Commission also claimed that none of the arrivals reached mainland Spain or another EU country.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez responded in a separate letter, accusing his European counterparts of acting out of ‘prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest’. He said calls to exclude Spain temporarily from Schengen violated European and humanitarian law and undermined the solidarity binding the bloc together.
Sánchez also rejected accusations that Spain had failed to protect the EU’s external frontier, arguing that the country recorded half as many illegal entries as Italy between 2021 and 2026. He compared the Ceuta crisis to Belarus’ state-facilitated migrant pressure against Poland and the Baltic states in 2021.
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