Italy Urges EU Action on Migration Centres at Ceuta Talks

Italy will call for EU-funded migrant processing centres and return hubs in third countries at emergency talks on Tuesday, senior government officials said, as EU interior ministers seek to prevent a repeat of last week’s influx of about 50,000 migrants into Spain’s Ceuta enclave.

The surge, which began on Thursday at one of the EU’s two land borders with Africa, both shared with Morocco, triggered alarm across the bloc.

The other land border is with the separate Spanish enclave of Melilla.

“We, as the European Union, can no longer simply react to emergencies within our borders. Instead, we must act as a united, cohesive bloc to stop departures at their source and return those who have no right to remain on EU territory,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told his EU colleagues on Tuesday, a copy of his speech released by his office showed.

“Now the time has come to put into practise new hub models for the external processing of asylum procedures and for returns in safe third countries.”

The Ceuta crisis is the first major test of the EU’s Migration Pact, which entered into force in June after years of negotiations—and of whether the bloc’s new rules and solidarity mechanisms can withstand a sudden mass arrival at its borders.

Migration has been one of the European Union’s most divisive political issues since a 2015-16 crisis, when more than a million refugees and migrants, many fleeing war in Syria, arrived in Europe.

The influx fuelled support for anti-immigration and far-right parties across the bloc and intensified years of disputes over border controls, asylum rules and burden-sharing.

Morocco said on Sunday that recent mass crossings into Ceuta and Melilla had been fuelled by misinformation on social media, human trafficking networks and misinterpretations of a Spanish court ruling.

Most of those who breached the border barrier found no food or welcome, and they returned to Moroccan soil.

Nevertheless, Italy suspended passport-free Schengen travel arrangements with Spain for a month, even though they do not apply to Ceuta, while 22 of the EU’s 27 member states urged coordinated action to strengthen the bloc’s external borders.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is calling for an EU emergency migration mechanism that would allow accelerated procedures and, in exceptional circumstances, a temporary suspension of asylum registrations during sudden mass arrivals, he wrote in a Politico opinion piece published on Tuesday.

He said the bloc’s current rules were designed for routine migration pressures rather than coordinated influxes.

European Commissioner Magnus Brunner, responsible for internal affairs and migration, said Ceuta showed some actors were willing to use migration to test the EU.

“For the time being, Europe has passed this test,” Brunner said in a message to Reuters via his spokesperson on Monday, adding that ministers would discuss lessons from the crisis and ways to strengthen the bloc’s response.

“It is encouraging that we brought the situation under control and carried out swift returns. The new European rules have helped make procedures more efficient and strengthened member states’ response.”