The start of the new political course will be marked by the migration emergency.
Now it is Ceuta that is asking for help in the face of the “extreme” migratory pressure it has been suffering in recent days, with a daily average of five hundred Moroccans and Algerians who want to bathe irregularly at Tarajal beach. This Sunday alone, one thousand five hundred people tried it, taking advantage of the dense fog that covered the coast of the southern border of the autonomous city.
These exorbitant figures show that All our border and island towns are subject to an unsustainable migratory flowwhich has caused the reception centres to collapse. Irregular arrivals in Ceuta and Melilla have increased this summer by 143%, and those from the Canary Islands by 126.1%. Since the beginning of the year, 66.2% more illegal immigrants have arrived than last year.
But this also presents a differentiating factor that arouses some suspicions. Because while the majority of arrivals in the Canaries come from Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania, those in Ceuta and Melilla come mainly from Morocco.
And there would be no doubt a priori of the goodwill of the regime Mohamed VI in his commitment to cooperation on immigration, except that he has already shown ample evidence of resorting to weakening border surveillance as a mechanism to put pressure on Spain when frictions have arisen in the diplomatic sphere.
Furthermore, even after the normalization of relations sealed at the High-Level Summit last February, Morocco has not explicitly recognized the Spanish character of Ceuta and Melilla.
This is why, Sánchez should not ignore the Moroccan route, which remains Spain’s first border with the African continent.
It is reasonable that the president should begin a tour of Mauritania, Gambia and Senegal today, the main sources of illegal immigration to the Canary Islands. But we must not forget the origin of the one that affects Ceuta. And even more so when it is clear that the autonomous city is the scene of a fierce struggle with the government of the neighboring country.
Because it is naive to think that the mass arrivals in Ceuta could have happened without some form of connivance on the part of the Moroccan government, probably expressed in greater laxity in arrests. It is also worth wondering whether it is not a coincidence that illegal immigration is rampant at the very moment when Sánchez is visiting the shortlist of African countries to try to stop the departures through economic cooperation agreements.
The migration crisis cannot be solved by measures aimed solely at managing reception. Measures must be taken, in coordination with the European Union, also in the countries of origin. And the first one to focus on is Morocco.
