The Ceuta 'crisis' is the cost of deadly EU policies

At least 141 have been reported dead, with many more missing, after an estimated 60,000 people attempted to enter Spanish territory from Morocco by swimming around the sea barrier separating the two from 29 July. The conditions under which the majority of those the Spanish government stated later left Ceuta “voluntarily” are still unclear, with civil society documenting testimonies of violence and coercion.

Those who remained in Ceuta faced dire humanitarian conditions, lacking sufficient food, water, and medical care as civil society reported a failure to provide their bare minimum for survival. Yet political discussion of the human toll among those who made the journey has been overwhelmingly absent.

Instead, politicians praise lawless returns while headlines proclaim an “invasion” of Europe via Ceuta, ignoring that it was Spanish authorities who deployed military personnel and equipment against individuals in need of urgent reception.

In addition to obscuring what happened to those who entered or tried to enter Europe beginning from 29 July, the “migration crisis” discourse overlooks how the long history of European border fortification, externalization, and expulsions in Ceuta and beyond has given rise to such events. In fact, recent changes to the EU’s migration framework appear likely to entrench, rather than address, deadly conditions at Europe’s borders.

Deadly history at the Spanish-Moroccan border

Although situated on the north-western African coast, Ceuta (Sebta) together with Melilla (Mlilia) have mainly been under Spanish control since the 15th-century Portuguese and then Spanish colonial expansions. With disputed status, their current borders are the product of mid-19th-century colonial military victories by France and Spain, which simultaneously ruled Morocco until the mid-20th century.

Since then, the enclaves remain military outposts, where, until recently, tributes to Franquism still stood. After Spain’s inclusion in the EU’s Schengen space in 1991, it erected border fences around the enclaves, dubbed the EU’s “only land borders with Africa,” illustrating how free movement for EU citizens came at the price of others’ immobility.

Due to their history and geographical position, Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of North Africa. Until recently, locals could enter without visas and goods circulated without customs duties, making the enclaves an economic hub reliant on movement between Spain and Morocco.

Although onward travel to “mainland Spain” has been subject to border controls and visa requirements for non-EU citizens, the enclaves have also remained a symbol of Fortress Europe. Because the formal Morocco-Spain border crossing is largely inaccessible for the vast majority of people on the move in Morocco, particularly given racial profiling of those with Black skin, mass crossing attempts into Ceuta and Melilla have long been one of the only means for individuals to enter the enclaves and apply for asylum and other protections in Spain.

Yet since 2005, Spain has implemented what it calls “hot returns”—immediate, collective expulsion of persons not even identified—at its Ceuta and Melilla borders. Despite their non-compliance with national, European, and international law, “hot returns” were codified in national law in 2015, though only for people arriving by land, as confirmed by several national judgments, including, most recently, the Spanish Supreme Tribunal.

To deter those seeking entry and to effect their expulsions, Spanish and Moroccan violence has become a decades-long reality at these borders, epitomised by violent repression in Ceuta in 1995, the 2014 Tarajal Massacre in Ceuta, and the 2022 24 June Massacre in Melilla. Despite tireless advocacy, families and civil society on both sides of the borders have not seen accountability or justice for the many disappeared and killed during these violent expulsion operations, entrenching impunity at the border.

Reflections of Ceuta across and beyond Europe

Developments at the Spanish border have reflected the progression of European migration practice and policy more broadly. After the increase of arrivals to Europe in 2015’s “summer of migration” sparked political panic leading to border closures, their enforcement across the continent has relied largely not on the dignified and individualized processing of those continuing to flee to the EU, as required by European and international law, but instead on their immediate and often violent expulsions—commonly called “pushbacks”—operating entirely outside any legal protections.

In effect, “hot returns” spread from Ceuta and Melilla to the rest of Europe.

The backlash to migration also triggered reforms of the EU’s common asylum policy, which have been in effect since June of this year. Although praised by EU leaders, the new legislation has been heavily criticised by civil society for reducing rights protections afforded to those arriving by attempting to relocate much of Europe's asylum processing to its external borders—if not to third countries—and accelerate returns from its territory. This includes via country-level evaluations of safety divorced from reality: Within these efforts, Morocco has been designated as a safe country of origin for nationals arriving in the EU—a move ignoring detentions and violent repression there.

Although political leaders discussed the Ceuta events within an “instrumentalisation” framing, neither the new and regressive Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation to which this refers, nor any of the EU’s migration reforms, appear to have been applied in Spain’s response—confirming the long-standing criticism about their unworkable nature.

Indeed, one key focus of the reforms is this crisis regulation, which enables member states to derogate from ordinarily applicable asylum procedures in situations of so-called “instrumentalisation of migrants by a third country or a hostile non-state actor with the aim of destabilising” the EU or its member states. An emphasis on “instrumentalisation” traces back to Turkey’s 2020 opening of its border with Greece; in 2021, Belarus’s encouragement of asylum-seekers to travel to its borders with Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania was familiarly dubbed a “hybrid attack” on the EU by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

As in Ceuta this past week, both instances resulted in heavy militarisation, deaths, and mistreatment of those who arrived at Europe’s borders, with little evidence of how Europe had been harmed other than through collective hysteria.

The repeated, deadly spectacle of border violence framed and responded to as an attack on Europe conceals an unacknowledged tension in the EU’s migration management logic: While advancing claims that the EU can be threatened by neighbouring states “instrumentalising” migration, the EU has simultaneously deepened its migration cooperation with neighbouring countries. This is particularly the case with countries in Africa, where funding is provided for increased border controls and returns in line with its own deterrence and expulsion policies.

Morocco is no exception, as affirmed by von der Leyen’s 3 August description that it remains an “important strategic partner” after the Ceuta events. Through these externalisation efforts, it is the EU that has been instrumentalising migration control, disregarding human lives, in exchange for development aid or other assistance to third countries—setting the stage for its further politicisation and abuse.

Last week’s events in Ceuta lay bare the failure of EU policies to reckon both with the continued human necessity of movement for survival and the local realities of communities on and around its borders. The history of its external borders with Morocco already made this clear. Yet they have further highlighted how the EU’s newest migration reforms remain both irrational, providing no solutions while fuelling human-made crises, and unsustainable, lacking the most basic humanity.

Hanaa Hakiki directs the Border Justice team at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

Delphine Rodrik is a senior legal advisor in ECCHR’s Border Justice team, where they support litigation challenging human rights violations at Europe’s borders.

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