Spain asks Frontex for help with migration crisis in Ceuta

Frontex should intervene

Spain asks for help with migration crisis in Ceuta

An area smaller than Frankfurt Airport, 5,000 migrants and angry protests – how Frontex is now supposed to help in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta.

The government in Madrid The EU border protection agency Frontex has asked for help in dealing with the migration crisis in the Spanish North African exclave Ceuta requested. The request was sent by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska to the Commission’s Director General for Migration and Internal Affairs, Beate Gminder, according to the website of the government press office in Madrid. Gminder had already offered this help on August 21st.

The left-wing Spanish government is under massive pressure after a mass rush of tens of thousands of migrants to Ceuta at the end of July. It cannot quickly deport the remaining migrants for legal reasons, but it also does not want to bring them to the mainland, while parts of the local population are beginning to rebel against the migrants’ presence.

According to the Interior Minister, there were around 72,000 migrants on July 30th and 31st Morocco swam to Ceuta or climbed over border fences. Most returned within hours. However, according to Grande-Marlaska in parliament on Friday, around a month later, there were still around 5,000 migrants in the area, which is not even quite as big as Frankfurt Airport is. Some of the almost 85,000 locals demonstrate increasingly violently against the presence of the migrants.

However, a collective return of migrants to Morocco without an individual case assessment is prohibited due to international law and Spanish court rulings. The government has ruled out bringing the migrants from Ceuta, which is not part of the Schengen area, to mainland Spain, even for a temporary period.

That would lead to fierce resistance from conservatively governed autonomous regions and renewed criticism from EU countries Spain lead. It could also violate Schengen rules and lead to Spain being excluded from the club of countries without controls at their common internal borders. Only around 500 particularly vulnerable unaccompanied minors are to be brought to the mainland.

That is why Frontex has now been asked to involve ten additional Frontex officers in order to speed up the registration and initial testing of migrants, the Interior Ministry said. The ministry emphasized that support from the EU asylum agency EUAA in conducting interviews and providing interpreters as part of this review process could be extremely helpful. Due to the limited spatial capacity in Ceuta, these measures could be carried out remotely online.