The meeting followed days of unusually public anger at Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. In a letter signed by 22 EU leaders, governments demanded tougher action to stop irregular arrivals, while Italy suspended air and sea transit with Spain over fears that migrants could move onward through the Schengen area. Sánchez hit back by urging his counterparts to show “understanding” rather than turn Spain into a scapegoat for a crisis on the EU’s external border.
By Tuesday, ministers were keen to close ranks. The EU’s Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner said the influx had been “instrumentalized” by smugglers and human traffickers, while French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said ministers had condemned efforts to use images of the crossings to divide the bloc.
“The divisions that we have heard over the weekend were not welcome and they were exploited by foreign countries,” Nuñez told reporters. “But what I heard this morning reassured me.”
Brunner declined to speculate about whether Morocco had played a role in the influx. The question is sensitive because Spain relies heavily on Rabat to police departures toward Ceuta, and the episode revived memories of 2021, when thousands entered the exclave after Moroccan forces relaxed controls during a diplomatic dispute with Madrid.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska instead praised Morocco’s cooperation in bringing the latest crisis under control and described Tuesday’s meeting as “entirely constructive.”
He said 70,000 of the 72,000 people who entered Ceuta had since returned to Morocco and insisted the Schengen area had never been at risk. Ceuta has special arrangements requiring travelers to show documentation before continuing to mainland Europe.