The European Parliament adopted, this Thursday, September 17 in Strasbourg, a resolution dedicated to the migration crisis in Ceuta. Supported by the European People’s Party (EPP), it received 339 votes for, 225 against and 16 abstentions. Without the reinforcement of more conservative right-wing groups, such as the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) or the Europe of Sovereign Nations, who contributed their votes and obtained the adoption of an amendment, the text would not have gathered a majority. Once again, the union of the rights made it possible to advance a text in the European Parliament, even if this resolution remains symbolic: devoid of binding scope, it is not binding on either Spain or Morocco.
MEP Sarah Knafo, from the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ENS) group, welcomes “a great victory against immigration, thanks to the union of the rights in the European Parliament” and recalls that the text “recognizes the migratory disaster, the Moroccan attack on a European border and the need to expel every illegal alien”but also that it points to the responsibility of the Spanish government: the regularization of a million illegal immigrants decided by Pedro Sánchez “served as a real call for relief against all of Europe”. Believing that the EPP can no longer do without the votes of the conservative right to have its texts on immigration adopted, the Reconquête MP concludes: “A few years ago, these words were banned in Strasbourg. Today, they are the majority. We won’t give up. »
The text adopted on Thursday is a continuation of the debates held in plenary session on Tuesday September 15. The MEPs spoke at length about the Ceuta crisis, in a climate of strong tensions over everyone’s responsibilities. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was once again implicated, accused of having “continually resisted the common tools needed to prevent” such a crisis, by opposing European texts on the return of irregular migrants and by carrying out “massive regularizations”.
The resolution returns to the events that occurred at the end of July in the 18.5 km² Spanish enclave backed by Morocco, where nearly 80,000 people crossed the border in the space of two days. The text “condemns with the greatest firmness the massive illegal border crossings towards Ceuta, from Morocco, by land and sea, as well as the exploitation of irregular migration as a tool of hybrid warfare against the territorial integrity of a Member State”. It also recalls the reality experienced on site: residents subjected to a situation of chaos and almost daily violence, migrants who drowned while attempting to cross, migrant women victims of rape during their journey. A humanitarian catastrophe that MEPs judge to be partly fueled by the pull created by massive Spanish regularizations. The text now invites “urgently” Madrid and Rabat to accelerate their cooperation on the return and readmission of irregular migrants who arrived in Ceuta at the end of July.
Symbolic, the resolution nevertheless constitutes a strong political signal a few months before the electoral deadlines in Spain, where Pedro Sánchez is already weakened.
