Pedro Sánchez escalated the dispute over the Ceuta Level 3 travel advisory after a surge of migrants from Morocco, saying Europe could not answer with “selfish, polarising and unlawful” measures. He asked for a formal meeting of the interior ministers of all 27 European Union countries and sent the letter to Ursula von der Leyen, António Costa and Micheál Martin.
In the same letter, Sánchez said Spain had expelled nearly all of the 50,000-60,000 migrants who crossed back to Morocco. He also said “the reaction of European governments over the past few hours has been rather asymmetric.”
Madrid and Brussels
Sánchez wrote that “Most have showed us their support and solidarity, and have offered their assistance. Others, however, have chosen to attack Spain and to call for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen Area.” The Spanish leader framed the response as a test of how the European Union handles sudden pressure at an external border.
He added that the current response was “contrary to European law, humanitarian law, and the principles of solidarity that bind us together,” and said it was also against “Europe’s long-term interests and to the most basic common sense.” His letter tied the Ceuta surge to the wider question of how quickly European governments can coordinate when one country faces a sharp border shock.
Giorgia Meloni and Schengen
Giorgia Meloni decided to resume European border controls after the incident, and Italy temporarily suspended Schengen Area free-travel arrangements with Spain. That move turned a border dispute into a travel-policy dispute, because Ceuta is not part of the Schengen Area and Sánchez argued that the European reaction was built on a false premise.
Sánchez wrote that there were “almost no irregular migrants left unreturned” and said Spain is, according to Frontex, one of the least porous external borders of the European Union, with irregular entries at half the level recorded in Italy in recent years from 2021 to 2026. Jeff Paul, reporting from Ceuta for Special Report, put the city at the center of the political fight.
European Union interior ministers
The immediate next step is Sánchez’s request for a formal meeting of the interior ministers of all 27 European Union countries. That request now sits with the institutions and leaders he addressed, while the travel and border dispute around Spain and Italy remains active in the background.
