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Michael Murphy: Spain's migrant wave exposed the cracks in the international order

Europe has to contend with Spain's offer to regularize migrants — and Morocco's friends

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Imagine the Rogers Centre filled to capacity, then filled again by half, to conjure a mental image of the some 70,000 people last week who scrambled, mostly swimming and climbing, from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish territory in North Africa. It was the largest single crossing at the Spain-Morocco border on record, bearing the hallmarks of a co-ordinated movement rather than a spontaneous spasm: migrants were reportedly ushered across by Moroccan agents embedded in the crowds. Morocco contests Spain’s sovereignty over the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, even though Iberian dominion predates Moroccan independence by centuries.

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If the desired result of this incursion was to humiliate Madrid, as seems likely, it has proved a spectacular success. European officials clambered over one another to condemn the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez for the breach of Spanish — and therefore, European Union — territory.

Michael Murphy: Spain's migrant wave........

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