Thousands of migrants cross into Spanish territory

In this episode of GZERO Europe, Carl Bildt discusses the sudden migrant crisis in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, where tens of thousands of people attempted to cross into the territory from Morocco.

Bildt says the scale and apparent coordination of the influx raised questions about whether Morocco was deliberately using migration as a tool to pressure Spain, pointing to tensions over Western Sahara and Spain’s relationship with Algeria. “Clearly this was all of the ingredients of something that was seeming organized in order to have pressure on Spain,” he says.
Bildt also highlights how the crisis was amplified by political actors across Europe and the United States, as well as Russian propaganda.

The influx revived fears of a repeat of Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis, with Italian officials even discussing the possibility of suspending the Schengen Agreement. But nearly all of the migrants returned to Morocco after finding they could not enter mainland Spain.

Bildt says the migrant rush ultimately underscores both the vulnerability of Europe’s borders and the extent to which migration can be exploited for political purposes. At the same time, he points to a significant decline in illegal migration to Europe this year as evidence that the policies European countries have put in place are beginning to work.