Europe praises Spain for exemplary behavior in 'migrant crisis'

"I understand that Spain did this because it is mainly about Latin Americans who speak the same language and share the same culture. But the message for the rest of Europe is not good. It is definitely not," said the representative of the European Commission almost at the end of the interview he gave in Brussels after the meeting.

Until then, Brünner had been careful with his statements, avoiding any type of endorsement or criticism of the offensive led by Italy and Denmark against the Pedro Sánchez government's initiative. According to the commissioner, the matter was not even addressed during the meeting, which was held via videoconference.

However, between the lines of a letter signed by 22 countries over the weekend, the crisis in the Spanish exclave in North Africa was a direct consequence of the publicized stimulus for illegal immigration, produced by the socialist leader's policies, an exception in Europe.

The Spanish program, announced in the first half of this year and which has already received more than a million applications, only regularizes residence, not citizenship, as Antonio Tajani, Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs, suggested in the wake of what happened. Madrid summoned the Italian ambassador after the post, a form of reprimand in diplomatic language.

Regularization also does not cover irregular immigrants, who arrived in Spain without a visa. No explanation, however, can alleviate the fact that Sánchez's policy to address the lack of labor and the demographic crisis, two European ghosts, goes against the continent's own limits on the issue.

Only Ireland, which holds the temporary presidency of the EU, France, Portugal and Luxembourg did not sign the weekend manifesto. In the end, Spain may have had exemplary behavior during the crisis, as Brünner highlighted more than once in his explanations, but it will continue to serve as an argument for the intensification of the bloc's immigration policies.

The recently approved legislation will allow the creation of "return centers" outside the EU's borders, as well as the designation of safe third countries: places that accept to receive deported immigrants of other nationalities or that shelter them during the process of granting asylum.

According to Brünner, six EU countries are already negotiating installations of this type. "It is a legitimate process and it is up to member states to do it", declared the commissioner, reiterating that the Immigration Pact, as the new legislation is known, "still needs to reach its full implementation".

Asked whether the process could not be instrumentalized by the countries that will receive immigrants, as allegedly happened with Morocco - it is speculated that it would have relaxed supervision to put pressure on Spain in another dispute -, Brünner declared that Brussels now has tools to deal with this type of behavior.

"We have our new strategy on visa policy and sanctions on countries that do not cooperate," he said, citing Ethiopia and Somalia as recent examples.

Brünner did not want to admit the political tension of the matter when asked about the alleged participation of Russian intelligence services in more than 2,000 fake articles and 6,000 posts related to Ceuta in recent days.

"We know the responsibility of coyotes and drug traffickers, but we still need an assessment from the intelligence services to talk about Russia."

Moscow is known for attempts at interference and disinformation against the bloc, notably during election periods. Germany, this semester, and Italy, France and Spain, in 2027, will go through elections in which immigration will be one of the crucial themes.

"Illegal immigration has decreased by 55% in the last two years and, in 2026, it will have already registered a drop of almost 40%," said Brünner. Or, in numbers cited by the commissioner, 49 thousand seizures in seven months of this year, a number similar to that of a single week in Greece in October 2015.

"But, of course, the events in Ceuta show that impactful images surpass even the best statistics."

Around 70,000 of the 75,000 illegal immigrants who reached the peninsula where Ceuta is located last week have already returned to Morocco. The death toll reaches 75.