Migrants, mainly Moroccan, try to cross the Spanish border at the level of the enclave of Ceuta, on the Moroccan shore of the Mediterranean. – AFP
- The Spanish enclave of Ceuta has seen the arrival this week of several thousand migrants who want to reach Europe.
- Morocco has in fact knowingly let these migrants pass to put pressure on Brussels and Madrid, which delegate the management of the border to it.
- The European Union denounces blackmail but is in fact caught up in its own game.
A new migratory crisis has exploded at the gates of Europe. This time on the Spanish side, in Ceuta. More than 8,000 people since Monday have managed to cross the border between Morocco and Spain. A completely unprecedented figure by its scale.
Ceuta, but also a few hundred kilometers away
Melilla, are two Spanish cities, two enclaves, on the coast of Morocco. These are the only two land borders the European Union has with an African country. Thus, they are privileged fixing points for candidates for access to the European Union. This is nothing new. Moreover, the two enclaves are barricaded thanks to a border device worthy of the Iron Curtain.
Beyond the number, the surprise was to see that the migrants were overwhelmingly Moroccan, and very young, sometimes even minors. This is a consequence of the health crisis: for more than a year, the borders of the Spanish enclaves have been strictly closed. A disaster for all Moroccans and all Moroccans who went to Ceuta or Melilla every day to work. “The population of northern Morocco is very fragile from an economic point of view, their level of education is lower,” recalls Sara Prestianni, immigration and asylum manager at EuroMed Rights, interviewed by 20 minutes. There is a lot of informal work there, made very difficult by the health crisis. »The local candidates for departure are then only more numerous.
A crisis that does not happen by chance
“There are several migratory routes to access Europe. The European Union regularly tries to close them but sometimes they reopen ”, as this week in Ceuta, notes with 20 minutes the researcher at the Institut Convergence migrations Mélodie Beaujeu. These roads do not reopen by chance or at the simple pressure of migrants: here, it is accepted that the Moroccan border guards have, by order, let thousands of people pass who wanted to try to cross into Spain. This is what pushes Madrid and Brussels to talk about blackmail on the part of Morocco. But if there is blackmail, it is rather the European Union that has started.
“The European Union is in a logic of blackmail with its policy of outsourcing the management of its external borders”, judges Sara Prestianni. Clearly, the EU gives money, and even a lot of money, to several countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean to retain migrants who want to join Europe. Libya and Turkey also benefit from this regime. With Morocco, collaboration on this issue is starting to be old: since the beginning of the 2000s.
Europe caught at its own game
But over the years the European Union has ended up being taken at its own game. “By delegating the management of its borders, the EU has given a lot of power to these countries to do a sort of bargaining”, explains Mélodie Beaujeu. . And this is not a first either: Turkey has already increased the pressure on several occasions with the European Union by threatening or even letting the migrants it detains on its coasts pass. These countries would also be wrong to deprive themselves of these pressure blows because it works very well: Spain has already announced 30 million euros in aid to Morocco so that it strengthens its border controls.
It is not just a question of money, however. Morocco seeks to directly put diplomatic pressure on Spain. Relations between the two countries which share the Strait of Gibraltar are regularly bitter: because of border disputes but also because of Western Sahara, a subject “very sensitive in Morocco”, says Sara Prestianni. This area, a former Spanish colony, between Morocco and Mauritania, is claimed by Rabat. Morocco has been facing a serious independence rebellion for decades, the Polisario Front, which controls part of the sector. Its leader, Brahim Ghali, sick with Covid-19, was welcomed by Spain for treatment at the end of April. Rabat did not like it. “Morocco does not have the financial power to sanction Spain. Their means of sanctioning Madrid is migratory pressure ”, describes Mélodie Beaujeu.