Ceuta: a test of Europe’s new migration pact – and a familiar failure
The images from Ceuta in late July were extraordinary. Tens of thousands of people moving towards, and into, the Spanish enclave from Morocco within a matter of hours; people swimming around the border barriers, climbing fences and running through the streets, not to mention the horrific and tragic loss of around 100 lives. But while the numbers were unprecedented, the underlying dynamics and even more so, the familiar responses, were not.
We have seen this before. In May 2021, more than 8,000 people entered Ceuta in just two days, in the context of a diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco. At the time, Morocco’s apparent relaxation of border controls was widely understood as a means of putting pressure on Spain over its decision to allow the leader of the Polisario Front to receive medical treatment there. The Mixed Migration Centre has previously described this kind of dynamic as one of the uglier faces of migration diplomacy: when states use migration, or the threat of migration, as leverage in pursuit of wider political objectives.
What happened in July 2026 is different in some respects. The numbers were vastly higher, social media played a much more visible role, and the immediate trigger appears to have involved a combination of misinformation, existing aspirations to migrate and a rapidly perceived window of opportunity. But the broader lesson is remarkably familiar.
A view across Ceuta beach, and Kingdom of Morocco on the other side. Photo by Mehdi Zahim from Getty Images.
Europe has made itself vulnerable
For years, European states have invested heavily in preventing irregular migration before people reach European territory. Morocco, alongside other states around the EUs external borders, is a central part of that strategy. The EU and its Member States provide financial, political and operational support to countries of origin and transit in return for cooperation on border management, preventing departures and facilitating returns.
While there is an obvious logic to and need for close cooperation with partner countries in migration governance, there is also a vulnerability built into this model. If preventing migration becomes an essential interest for Europe, and if increasing arrivals are known not simply to cause panic but to be readily instrumentalised politically, the countries on which Europe depends for prevention of irregular migration hold considerable leverage. This became clear after Ceuta, when Italy and Denmark led 22 member states expressing their concerns, linking the crossings to Spain’s recent regularisation programme as an alleged “pull factor” and with some states even calling for the suspension of Spain from the Schengen zone.
This is precisely what MMC warned about in its analysis of migration diplomacy. Destination countries, or Europe as a whole, may believe they have the resources and power to make transit and origin countries cooperate. But when those countries can withdraw border cooperation, or allow irregular movements to increase, the balance of power can change quickly.
The stakes are higher still because migration has become such a politically charged issue within Europe itself: a single crossing incident can now trigger not just alarm, but destabilisation and open conflict between member states, as Ceuta showed. Against this background, migration is a particularly strong, and growing, diplomatic bargaining chip.
Ceuta exemplifies this vulnerability. Spain is the only EU country with a land border on the African continent. The border is heavily fortified, with fences, surveillance and security forces. Yet no border of this kind can realistically be designed to stop tens of thousands of people simultaneously, even more so if one of the two countries on either side of the border loosens the controls.
That does not mean that Morocco deliberately organised or even supported the July crossing. Publicly available evidence does not establish that. Moroccan authorities have denied encouraging irregular migration and have themselves deployed large numbers of security forces to stop people from reaching the border – and also did so around 15th of August, when rumours circulated online about another attempt.
But it is difficult to imagine a movement of this scale taking place without at least a substantial relaxation of border control on the Moroccan side. But whether or not Morocco actively “opened the gates” and whether or not there were other states involved in encouraging Morocco to do so – which has also been suggested in some commentary – it is clear that Europe has created a system in which its ability to manage its own borders depends so heavily on the continued cooperation of other states that any disruption of that cooperation can produce panic.
The Pact was supposed to provide the tools to respond
The timing of the Ceuta events makes the European response particularly revealing.
The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum entered into application on 12 June 2026. It was designed to provide a more coherent European system for managing migration, including stronger external borders, more solidarity between Member States and specific procedures for crisis situations and the instrumentalisation of migration by third countries.
Ceuta therefore arrived almost immediately as a real-world test of the Pact’s abilities.
The result was not encouraging.
Instead of demonstrating a confident, coordinated European response, the crisis rapidly became an intra-European political dispute. Italy introduced border controls affecting travellers arriving from Spain (later reciprocated by Spain) and justified the measure partly by reference to the migration situation. France also strengthened checks. Italy and Denmark led 22 EU leaders in a joint letter to EU institutions proposing to consider, if needed, “reinforcing or reintroducing temporary internal border controls”, even though the movement into Ceuta did not amount to uncontrolled movement into mainland Europe and the Schengen zone. Spain’s Prime Minister Sánchez called the response “selfish, polarising and unlawful”. This was particularly striking because the actual outcome was already becoming clear. Almost all of those who had entered Ceuta, were already back in Morocco within approximately 24 hours.
In other words: Spain had managed – in extraordinarily difficult circumstances – to calmly bring the situation under control, while politicians in other European member states, not in any way directly affected, were panicking and amplified a sense of crisis.
Also, strikingly, there was remarkably little public discussion of, or any public reference to, the Pact’s new framework for the instrumentalisation of migration. The Pact explicitly envisages situations in which a third country or non-state actor encourages or facilitates movements towards an EU border with the intention of destabilising a Member State or the EU. While it is not clear yet whether or not this was the case with Morocco, it was crystal clear no public EU or EU member state official even dared to refer to it and blame Morocco. Instead, Morocco was offered additional support, which goes to show how much leverage Morocco hold over the EU on the issue of migration.
Not a smuggling operation, nor simply a product of social media
Politicians and some media were quick to point the finger at smugglers for facilitating the events.
However, the Ceuta movement should not simply be described as a massive smuggling operation. Smuggling networks may have exploited the situation (for example by offering advice on how to cross for a fee), and Moroccan and Spanish authorities have pointed to criminal organisation involvement. But the movement itself appears to have been driven to a large extent by existing aspirations and grievances, combined with rapidly circulating information and misinformation, without smugglers being actively involved in the actual crossing, for which smugglers would not be required (unlike, for example, a longer distance sea crossing across the Mediterranean).
Further, much commentary pointed to the role of social media and misinformation (e.g. around Spain’s recent regularisation campaign and a recent Supreme court ruling that people arriving in Ceuta by sea cannot be send back) in causing this mass movement.
MMC’s research among Moroccans on the move shows that social media is not generally a primary reason people decide to migrate. Among those interviewed through MMC’s 4Mi initiative since 2021, only around 2% cited social media as a key factor in deciding to migrate, while 61% said they decided themselves. More than half had not sought information on social media before leaving.
Once people are on the move, however, social media becomes much more important as a source of information. These data concern more planned journeys though, and therefore cannot be directly extrapolated to a spontaneous mass mobilisation such as Ceuta.
What social media appears to have done in the case of Ceuta was not create the aspiration to migrate – which is already firmly there for many young Moroccans – but compress thousands of individual, already existing aspirations into a single moment. Videos and messages suggesting that the border was open provided social proof that crossing was possible. WhatsApp and other platforms could then help people coordinate rapidly. In that sense, the movement resembled a flash mob more than an irregular crossing orchestrated by smugglers: people saw what was happening in real time and decided, on the spot, to join, without necessarily weighing the consequences. It proved tragic in consequence, as many of those who joined lost their lives.
But the underlying drivers were already there: unemployment, economic hardship, marginalisation and the lack of realistic regular pathways. As such, deleting a few social-media posts will not make the phenomenon disappear.
Most importantly, there is the human cost
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the European reaction was what largely disappeared from view.
The political debate focused overwhelmingly on sovereignty, border control, Schengen, Spain’s migration policy and the alleged threat to Europe. In public statements after most people had returned, high-level European officials expressed satisfaction with this fact.
But more than 100 people died. This is a tragedy.
These were not abstract “migration flows”. They were people who entered the water because they believed there was a window of opportunity to reach Ceuta. They included young people and families with children. Their deaths are the predictable human consequence of a system in which a heavily fortified border meets strong aspirations to move, very limited regular alternatives and a sudden opportunity to cross.
That is perhaps the most important lesson from Ceuta.
Europe has spent years externalising migration control, building ever stronger borders and making cooperation from neighbouring countries central to its migration policy. It has simultaneously made migration one of the most politically sensitive issues in European politics. This has created a panicked approach to migration management, lacking in evidence and the realities on the ground. It has also created a vulnerability that other states can exploit, whether deliberately, opportunistically or simply by failing to cooperate.
The response should not be to build an even higher fence.
Nor should it be to pretend that social media caused the crisis, or that smugglers encouraged it. It also should not be to turn on another EU Member State which has to address a sudden spike in arrivals.
It also should not be to turn a member state’s efforts to manage a sudden spike in arrivals into a pretext for political attacks rooted in differing approaches to migration management and regularisation.
The EU Pact was supposed to mark a change: more European solidarity, stronger and more coherent border management, control, and a collective response to crises and instrumentalisation.
Ceuta was its first major test.
Spain, together with Morocco, ultimately brought the immediate crisis under control. Europe, however, did not demonstrate that it had learned any lessons and showed, yet again, a remarkable lack of confidence.
And those who paid the highest price were once again the people on the move.
Bram Frouws
Bram Frouws is the Director of the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) and a migration researcher with extensive experience across Africa, Asia, and Europe. He writes widely on migration and displacement, and tweets from @bramfrouws
.
