The Ceuta crisis gives wings to Catalan and Basque independence movements with immigration powers

MadridOne of the secondary protagonists of Pedro Sánchez's appearance in the Congress of Deputies to give explanations for the management of the Ceuta crisis has been the repeated demand by Junts, Bildu, and the PNB for the Spanish government to transfer immigration powers to Catalonia and the Basque Country. ERC has made no reference to it, but also supports it. The person who opened the floor was Miriam Nogueras: “We want them so that Catalonia stops paying for the bad decisions of Spanish governments and starts doing the work that evidently has not been done,” she proclaimed during her intervention. It was Junts who, in January 2024, placed this demand on the political agenda after extracting the commitment from the PSOE in exchange for the first three decrees of the legislature. It took a year to materialize in black and white, but the veto from Podemos has prevented it from prospering.

Miriam Nogueras has argued that Junts wants the powers to “do exactly” what the rest of the countries in the European Union are doing: “Control how many people enter and through which channels they do so, guarantee integration, language, work, values, and Catalan identity, and execute expulsion orders rapidly,” she said. A week ago, Junts re-registered the bill giving a nod to Podemos by changing the preamble that the left-wing party considered “racist” so they would have “no excuse” to vote against it. However, Podemos closed the door on it again, alleging that it maintains a “migration control approach based on security.” Pedro Sánchez noted that the new text “exceeds some of the elements” that the PSOE and Junts had agreed upon, but he announced that the Socialists will vote in favor of it in the first parliamentary examination.

After Nogueras' intervention, the spokespersons of the two Basque parties voiced the same demand. However, they are a few steps behind because they have not yet reached any agreement with the Moncloa. The leader of Bildu in Madrid, Mertxe Aizpurua, has demanded the “capacity” and the “necessary tools” to be able to carry out an “integral management” of immigration that is not just following in the wake of the policies that “the Spanish government of the day decides” and that allows them to apply a “Basque model based on human rights, dignity, reception, and integration”. “We Basques will be able to do it much better”, she claimed.

The PNV, for its part, stated that it wants Euskadi to be an “active political actor with decision-making power” and not a “mere passive actor” after the Ceuta crisis has “irrevocably changed” the “perception” of migration: “We want to participate effectively in the definition of the migration policy that affects the Basques and that has consequences for our people”, verbalized Maribel Vaquero, Jeltzale spokesperson in the lower house.

A demand that comes from afar

The demands of Basque independence supporters are not new. In fact, both parties included them in their 23-J election manifestos of 2023. So much so that a few days after the agreement between the PSOE and Junts, the PNB warned that the Basque Country would follow: “It wouldn't be bad if, for once, instead of the PNB being the one to open breaches in the containment wall of Madrid and the Catalans taking the things we have achieved, it were the other way around,” said Aitor Esteban in January 2024. Two years ago, the leader of Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, also said that it was necessary to “recover” these powers: “We are part of a nation that has its national identity at risk”.

ERC does not mention it, but is also in favor of it

For his part, the ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, made no mention or allusion to immigration powers. Despite this, the republicans are in favor of it: they supported it in September 2025 in Congress and also incorporated it into the 2024 Parliament election program. “It must allow us to create better public policies to guarantee social cohesion, human rights, and the national construction of the country,” the document argued. Now, sources from the parliamentary group insist to this newspaper: “We will always be in favor of having all powers.”