The massive entry of Moroccans through Ceuta, why now?

A week has passed since Pedro Sánchez traveled to Algeria to try to make peace and re-establish political and economic relations that would ensure, above all, gas purchases. Relations had broken down after Spain accepted Morocco's plan for the Sahara, which disregarded the claim for self-determination and settled for simple autonomy. And this Spanish capitulation, unforgivable to the Algerians, came a few years after, in 2021, Spain's reception of Brahim Ghali, head of the Polisario Front, caused a crisis with Morocco that ended with the also illegal entry of 8,000 Moroccans through the Ceuta border. It is these antecedents that make us suspect that behind what is happening these days in Ceuta there is something more than the will of some young people to force their entry into Europe. Although it is difficult to believe that this could happen without, at least, the passivity of the Moroccan side, officially relations between Spain and Morocco are currently good and cooperation is maintained.

The facts are that in recent days hundreds of people have been entering by swimming from Morocco to Spain. Yesterday, furthermore, the situation completely overflowed, to the point that thousands did so through the land fence in what looked like a procession of immigrants that the Spanish border police could not contain and that the Moroccan police are not clearly understood to have intended to stop. At late afternoon, the army was mobilized and the EU offered all the cooperation of Frontex. The situation, however, is currently chaotic, and there are at least seven deaths, for now. There are thousands of young people, the vast majority between 15 and 30 years old, almost all men and of Moroccan origin, who are spread throughout the autonomous city awaiting the possibility of applying for asylum or staying in Spain illegally. The president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, of the Popular Party, has asked for the State to take control because, he says, the city is overwhelmed.

It is too soon to analyze the situation calmly. What is clear is that many factors are at play. On the one hand, an internal crisis in Morocco with an excess of disillusioned and jobless youth who are trying to leave as best they can to seek their future elsewhere, even though they know they will not be very welcome. On the other hand, the clash between different ways of understanding migration controls. The EU, controlled by conservative forces and fearful of the advance of xenophobic far-right, has just tightened its borders and its legislation to further block immigration. Meanwhile, Spain is in the midst of a regularization process – highly criticized by both the national right and far-right, as well as the European and international right – and finds itself with a recent Supreme Court ruling prohibiting hot returns if one has entered by swimming. Xenophobic and anti-immigration discourses grow with every image on TV of queues of young people making the victory sign at the entrance to Ceuta, but to combat them, one cannot minimize the gravity of the situation that this massive entry represents either. And, on top of that, it is difficult to do anything without Moroccan collaboration, which will surely have a cost that is difficult to assess at the moment. The crisis, in any case, is historic and will have a difficult resolution. We will have to see how it evolves.