Europe risks learning precisely the wrong lessons from the latest crisis in Ceuta.What unfolded on Spain’s North African border was not one crisis but two. They are closely connected, yet fundamentally different. Failing to distinguish between them risks misunderstanding both, and, ultimately, repeating them.

The first concerns Morocco’s long-established use of migration as an instrument of political coercion against Spain. The second concerns the Spanish government’s own approach to immigration and the wider consequences that approach may have for the European Union. Only by separating these two issues can Europe hope to address either successfully.

Cueta was a warning about Europe’s willingness to defend the foundations upon which its freedom depends

Cueta was a warning about Europe’s willingness to defend the foundations upon which its freedom depends

Morocco’s latest operation should not be mistaken for a conventional migration crisis. It was, above all, an act of strategic coercion. For decades, Rabat has understood that migration can serve purposes extending far beyond humanitarian need. Properly controlled – or deliberately left uncontrolled – migration becomes a remarkably effective instrument of statecraft.

The pattern is well established. In 1975, the Green March enabled Morocco to seize control of Spanish Sahara by exploiting Spain’s political paralysis during the final days of Franco’s regime. In 2021, Morocco deliberately relaxed border controls after Madrid admitted Polisario leader Brahim Ghali for medical treatment, allowing thousands of migrants to enter Ceuta within hours.

The latest events belong to precisely the same strategic tradition. Migration was not the objective; it was the instrument. More than sixty thousand Moroccan civilians crossed into a Spanish city of barely eighty thousand inhabitants while Moroccan security forces looked on without intervening. Such an operation cannot plausibly be described as spontaneous, nor was it driven primarily by economic necessity.

It was a carefully calibrated demonstration of political leverage. The fact that most of those who crossed returned to Morocco shortly afterwards reinforces that conclusion. This was never intended to become another 2015-style migration wave into Europe. It was a limited coercive operation designed to remind Madrid of a simple reality: whenever Rabat chooses to manipulate migration flows, Spain immediately feels the consequences.

This is why Europe should resist the temptation to interpret Ceuta........

© The Spectator