“The responsibility of all border countries, including ours, is to defend and protect the external EU border. Protection is not just Spain’s issue. It is an issue for the entire EU. It is good that attention was drawn to it, and I hope that the Spanish government will properly handle future challenges,” he told journalists on Wednesday.
Madrid took urgent action to send migrants out of Ceuta and confirmed on Tuesday that out of 72,000 people who flooded into this enclave from Morocco last week, 70,000 have already returned to their country.
At least 75 people died trying to reach the enclave.
However, taking advantage of the situation, right-wing representatives on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to claim that this is proof that “uncontrolled” migration is cornering Europe.
The government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez supports a more open approach to migration than many other EU countries, especially strict position supporters like Italy and Denmark, which proposed suspending Spain’s participation in the Schengen free movement area due to the Ceuta crisis.
“I don’t think Spain should be removed from the Schengen area. I think the initial reactions were emotional,” said M. Sinkevičius.
Madrid firmly rejected this idea, which is impossible under EU law in any case, and P. Sánchez wrote a letter to the heads of EU institutions over the weekend criticizing the “selfish” position of other member states.
Ceuta officials previously linked the movement of migrants to a decision by the Spanish Supreme Court, which prohibits officials from immediately returning migrants arriving by sea without a court process. This decision does not apply to migrants arriving in Spain by land.
This year Spain launched a program granting legal status to illegal migrants already living in the country. It is expected that this program will benefit about 500,000 people, mostly from Latin America.
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