Madrid and the EU working on emergency plan to alleviate migration crisis
The Spanish government is working against the clock to come up with a temporary “strategic plan” to alleviate the severe migration crisis in the Canary Islands and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa. Meanwhile, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) has encouraged Madrid to formally ask for help to contain the humanitarian emergency.
The Spanish Minister for Youth and Children, Sira Rego (Communist Party/Sumar), announced in a visit to Ceuta on Wednesday (4 September) that the progressive executive of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) is currently drafting a contingency plan with the EU to help ease the strain on reception centres for unaccompanied minor immigrants.
According to Rego, it is “a strategic plan that is being worked on with the EU and European institutions to request the [financial] resources that correspond to us (…)” to implement those contingency plans.
In the short term, the Spanish government aims to explore the “possibility of implementing European programs that welcome and protect asylum-seeking children” and carry out a policy of “binding and supportive reception of children in EU territory,” Rego stated.
Recent official figures revealed that irregular migrant arrivals from Africa reached record levels in Spain in the first two weeks of August, with increases of 126% in the Canary Islands and 143% in Ceuta.
A large number of these irregular migrants come from Mauritania and the Sahel region, where the current escalation of violence is displacing thousands of people and posing major security challenges for the EU.
A big challenge posed to local authorities is that migrant reception centres in the Canary Islands and Ceuta are overcrowded, forcing them to set up tents and other temporary accommodations.
The migratory crisis has also turned into a controversial political battlefield between the government and the Spanish People’s Party (Partido Popular/EPP), the main opposition force, which accuses the PSOE of lacking a real migration policy and of ‘improvising’ with the current emergency.
The far-right VOX party, the third largest force in parliament, and agitator Alvise Pérez’s Se Acabó la Fiesta (The Party is Over/SALF) have also politically exploited the humanitarian emergency in the Canary Islands and Ceuta to harshly attack Sánchez’s government.
Warning from Frontex and criticism from the Canary Islands’ president
A critical voice was heard on Thursday (5 September) when the President of the regional government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo (of the centre-right Coalición Canaria party), told El País in an interview that he felt “deceived by the PSOE.”
Meanwhile, Frontex’s Executive Director Hans Leijtens called this week for political will from the Spanish government, as well as financial and legal resources, so that the agency can cooperate quickly with Madrid in this crisis, Euractiv’s partner EFE reported.
Leijtens added that Frontex is currently negotiating its cooperation programmes with EU partners for 2025 and recalled that member states need first to officially request the agency’s help.
“I have seen it with my own eyes. I have been to reception centres (for migrants in the Canaries), I have been to the coast; I have spoken to the Guardia Civil (militarised police). I am perfectly aware of it [the problem], but it all starts with a request from the Spanish government,” warned the high-ranking European official.
Similarly, Clavijo sent a letter last week to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, inviting her to visit the Canary Islands to see first-hand how local authorities and NGOs are dealing with the emergency.
In addition, he asked on Wednesday (4 September) to appear before the European Parliament to explain the situation and ask for urgent extra help from the EU, EFE reported.
The reception of a limited quota of immigrant minors in the autonomous communities in which the PP and VOX govern in coalition triggered a bitter crisis between the two parties before the summer and led to a partial breakdown of local agreements between them.
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