By PARIS — French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced Friday that he had ordered increased controls at the border with Spain over fears that the thousands of migrants who reportedly forced their way into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta could travel unimpeded throughout the Schengen area.
Nuñez announced in a post on X that local police and military units would be mobilized for the checks, and said in an interview with radio station RTL that he was in contact with Spanish authorities.
“We have a mobile unit that is on duty around the clock,” he said on RTL.
Nuñez’s office did not immediately provide additional details on where the increased controls would take place.
French center-right presidential candidate Edouard Philippe called for a “European response” to the crisis, but stressed that his country “must immediately strengthen control of our border with Spain. Not a single migrant must be allowed to enter national territory illegally.”
France is part of the Schengen area but has repeatedly renewed its authorization to proceed with temporary internal border checks since the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, using provisions in the Schengen Borders Code that allow such measures in response to serious security threats.
But the images of people pouring into Ceuta, an autonomous city of about 80,000 people and one of the European Union’s only two land borders with Africa, have drawn scrutiny far beyond Paris — especially among right-wing and far-right parties across Europe who seized on the incident to call for heightened restrictions on migration.
However, special rules already apply to Ceuta, and identity checks are carried out when travelling from the enclave to peninsular Spain or other Schengen countries.
“The images coming from Ceuta are shocking and demonstrate, once again, that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a real threat to the security of Europe’s borders,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote on X.
Javí Lopez, the vice-president of the European Parliament and a member of the Socialists and Democrats, called Meloni’s comments “unworthy of a European partner.”
“After 700,000+ arrivals from Libya, Italy received European support, not lectures. Solidarity is not a one-way street,” Lopez said.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the images coming from Ceuta “unacceptable,” saying that Europe “cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules.” She confirmed that EU Commissioner for Migration Magnus Brunner is working closely with Spain and “is ready to travel to critical points.”
The Commission is coordinating with Spain, EU countries and international organizations before drawing conclusions about what triggered the crisis, said a Commission official familiar with the discussions who was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak with the press.
Calling the Commission’s and Brunner’s support on the matter “encouraging,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in a statement said: “ I [welcome] Spain’s intention not to allow the illegal migrants onto the European mainland. We expect Morocco to take back the illegal migrants without delay … The Return Regulation adopted in June must now be implemented immediately and in full.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party echoed Meloni, saying Schengen with Spain should be suspended if necessary.
Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, a member of the right-wing Finns Party, backed the Italian leader on X, accusing Spain of failing to “protect the Schengen Area’s external border from infiltration,” adding that “all European countries must support Meloni’s proposal.”
Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson mirrored those comments, saying that his migration minister was “in contact with his Nordic counterparts and does not rule out taking the measures required to ensure that 2015 does not happen again,” referring to another migration crisis when more than one million refugees and migrants traveled to Europe, fleeing wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Categorizing Spain’s decision to grant residence permits to unauthorized migrants as a “pull factor for illegal migration,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker called for the swift implementation of the European Asylum and Migration Pact. “Should the situation in Spain develop in a way that puts pressure on our national borders, we will do everything necessary to protect them — including, if required, temporary closures of Schengen borders,” he said.
Before Nuñez’s announcement, Marine Le Pen, the leading far-right candidate ahead of next year’s presidential election in France, urged the government to “step up border controls” and vowed to “limit Schengen free movement to EU nationals” if elected president next year.
Conservative presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau said it was “more than ever necessary” to “ostracize Spain from the European community,” and that the “irresponsible socialist government” led by center-left Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had made the passport-free travel area “untenable.”
Retailleau, who preceded Nuñez as interior minister, said Sánchez had sparked the situation in Ceuta by granting legal status to half a million unauthorized immigrants in April. The reasons behind the influx in Ceuta, however, are not yet clear.
On Thursday, Sánchez said the “government of Spain is fully committed to providing an immediate response to the situation in Ceuta … and preparing the necessary measures to restore normalcy as soon as possible.”
The Spanish government has deployed military units to Ceuta and Sánchez is set to visit Friday.
Zoya Sheftalovich and Ferdinand Knapp contributed to this report.
This article is being updated.
Originally published on www.politico.eu — View original