EU in “full solidarity” with Spain over crisis in Ceuta

Written by journalist Danylo Aleksandrov

On Tuesday Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner said that EU stands in “full solidarity” with Spain after a migrant crisis in exclave of Ceuta, adding that the incident is a test of European resilience.

He spoke of this to the reporters after an emergency meeting of EU interior ministers which was held online to discuss the incident recently happened in Spanish city of Ceuta, located in Northern Africa, when around 60,000 migrants from neighboring Morocco stormed the border and got into Spanish territory.

Another goal of the meeting was also to ease the tensions between Spain and other European countries, as the incident in Ceuta caused an wave of criticism in multiple countries, with calls to punish Spain in one way or another for letting such a big number of illegal migrants, which could potentially threaten the security in EU and Schengen area.

Brunner said that these events were a test for European resilience, which in his opinion Europe passed, as the influx of aforementioned migrants into Schengen area, and the overall situation with security in Ceuta was quickly brought into normal. The task for the EU now is to decide what can be done to prevent similar incidents to happen again in the future.

Among the measures proposed were combating the migrants smuggling networks, enhancing return procedures and bettering foresight, as well as plain reinforcing of EU borders.

Spain praised the solidarity expressed by EU for its efforts to remedy the problem as well as the efforts to prevent such crises in the future.