By Thomas Moller-Nielsen

Europe’s hysterical response to the recent Ceuta migrant influx—including border controls, Schengen threats and open letters—largely ignored the territory’s existing checks and focused on political point-scoring rather than the underlying drivers of migration, especially Moroccan youth unemployment and poverty.

Deep cuts in development aid (global aid down 23% in 2025, Moroccan assistance nearly two-thirds lower since 2017) risk worsening the economic desperation that fuels such crises, while policymakers continue prioritising border enforcement over opportunity creation in origin countries.

With Europe’s working-age population projected to shrink sharply, the continent faces a trilemma of higher immigration, higher productivity or permanent stagnation; current anti-migrant politics have failed to halt populism and may be diverting attention from more urgent economic challenges.

(EurActiv) — Last week’s tragic events in Ceuta – where at least 88 people died trying to reach the Spanish exclave in North Africa – brutally underscored the lengths to which some will go to get to Europe. They also highlighted just how divorced from reality Europe’s approach to migration has become.

Italy reintroduced border controls for travellers arriving from Spain and declared a one-month “suspension” of the Schengen free-movement area. Denmark and Finland similarly suggested that Spain should be expelled from Schengen altogether. And 22 EU leaders, spearheaded by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, signed an open letter underlining their “readiness to take any necessary measures” to thwart onward migration to mainland Europe.

None of these leaders seemed to know – or care – that Ceuta is effectively already outside the Schengen area: passport and visa checks were, and still are, carried out for all people departing the territory. Calling for Schengen’s suspension, in other words, made about as much sense as demanding that Ceuta be physically moved to South Africa.

Moreover, Ceuta’s tiny size – at just under twenty square kilometres, it is roughly one-eighth the size of Brussels – and the EU’s close ties to Morocco........

© Eurasia Review