Ceuta’s migration crisis is becoming a gift to Spain’s (and Europe’s) far-right

This week, Ceuta’s president Juan Jesús Vivas spent 48 hours in Brussels because “the national government [in Madrid] has failed to live up to what was required of it,” he told the press at the European Parliament. The leader of Spain’s north African enclave, a member of the dominant EU Parliament centre-right European People’s party (EPP), hasn’t skipped any chance to remind the public of Madrid’s mishandling of Ceuta’s mass-migration emergency. While over 80,000 people arrived on the shores of the small autonomous city on 30 and 31 July 2026, Sanchez’s government tried to cope with such copious arrivals with extra funding, reinforced border patrolling and surveillance technology, as well as with discussions on relocations in the country and housing for minors. And although responses from Pedro Sánchez’s government have overall clearly fallen short of what is needed, it only took one day before Sánchez, the Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) head, had to expressly request a show of solidarity from the EU – as Schengen’s doors closed on Spain. On 1 August, Sánchez wrote a letter to commission president Ursula von der Leyen in light of the EU’s “selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” to the crisis. On the same day, 22 EU leaders raised “serious concern” over the threat to the EU’s border and criticised Spain’s migration policy, with a special mention to Madrid’s regularisation programme for migrants. Their responses, including discussion of closing Spain’s Schengen borders by various member states, went against the expected solidarity enshrined in June’s pact on migration and asylum. Bids for solidarity on Brussels’ side resulted in strengthened border monitoring by Frontex, announcements of an EU technical mission visit, but not much more tangible results than calls by EU commissioner for migration Magnus Brunner to “stand with the people of Ceuta.” Far from back to normal Minors sleeping on the streets are still too many for authorities to keep official counts of, while refugee centres remain over-subscribed, and hundreds of youngsters queuing outside Ceuta’s police station to register for Spain’s child-protection system. In light of the deepening gravity of the crisis on Ceuta’s streets, with increasing numbers of sexual assaults suffered by migrant women and girls, Sánchez formally requested emergency EU funding to manage migration in Ceuta. It is unclear whether this will be granted. “Let’s face it that Europe, in these days, didn’t give an example of solidarity,” Spain’s PM told Madrid’s congress on 3 September. In light of allegations over Rabat's likely role during the mass migration event, and calls to “rethink the cooperation” with Morocco as foreign minister José Manuel Albares told Bloomberg on Wednesday, the EU has only further strengthened its insistence that Morocco is “an important strategic partner.” A window for Spain’s far-right The lack of concrete EU support has pushed Ceuta’s leader to seek it out on his own accord, requesting assistance with the return of the estimated 5,000 migrants still in the enclave, and to cement Sánchez’ demands for emergency funding. Vivas’ visit to Brussels was under the aegis of EPP-organised meetings, purportedly in show of a mistrust of any leftwing party involvement in Ceuta’s crisis. A lot of Spain’s population seems to be in agreement. With the compounded pressure of an escalating humanitarian crisis on the streets of an under-resourced autonomous city, Madrid played host to marches, with an estimated 50,000 protesters shouting for the “expulsion of invaders” on 2 September. This is alongside a small uptick in support for Spain’s far-right party Vox, which jumped from 17.5 percent in July, to 18.4 percent in September. Vox is a strong contender for Spain’s 2027 general elections, now in the top three alongside Sánchez’s PSOE and the leading centre-right Popular Party (PP), whose polling position has remained consistently around 32.5 percent since before the Ceuta crisis. And now, after Ceuta, PP and Vox's joint polling exceeds 50 percent for the first time, while Spain’s leftwing coalition falls to 36 percent. Vox is Spain’s harshest party on migration, pushing a racist agenda in its elected communes such as in removing halal options for school meals, and aligning calls from far-right parties across Europe for mass remigration. “Go to Ceuta!” people shouted at German chancellor Friedrich Merz last week during his visit to Magdeburg, the capital of the state that punished him with a dismal election result in favour of the far-right AfD party. Ceuta endorses a clear pattern of the far-right: harness a crisis to enforce an anti-migration agenda, using a suggested ‘invader' to unite a nation against the party in power.