On Aug. 1, in response to the storming of the Spanish exclave of Ceuta by more than 70,000 migrants crossing from Morocco, 22 European leaders signed a letter criticizing Spain. The unwillingness of the vast majority of the European Union’s member states to provide support to the country whose borders were breached by unarmed foreigners is an ill omen for what the continent’s reaction to an armed attack would actually look like.
In their joint letter, the leaders laid blame for the border crisis at Spain’s decision to provide a path toward regularization for irregular migrants as well as a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling, arguing that these actions provided a pull factor with implications beyond the Pyrenees. By shifting responsibility onto Madrid for what Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described as a “violation of Spain's territorial integrity,” as opposed to recognizing Spain as the country that carried the entire burden by virtue of its geography, European leaders have inadvertently weakened the potential of any new effort toward European collective defense.
On Aug. 1, in response to the storming of the Spanish exclave of Ceuta by more than 70,000 migrants crossing from Morocco, 22 European leaders signed a letter criticizing Spain. The unwillingness of the vast majority of the European Union’s member states to provide support to the country whose borders were breached by unarmed foreigners is an ill omen for what the continent’s reaction to an armed attack would actually look like.
In their joint letter, the leaders laid blame for the border crisis at Spain’s decision to provide a path toward regularization for irregular migrants as well as a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling, arguing that these actions provided a pull factor with implications beyond the Pyrenees. By shifting responsibility onto Madrid for what Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described as a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity,” as opposed to recognizing Spain as the country that carried the entire burden by virtue of its geography, European leaders have inadvertently weakened the potential of any new effort toward European collective defense.
European leaders veered between condemnatory language and prima facie solidarity in the letter, mixing victim blaming with lip service to EU cooperation. Externally, the message serves as a disciplinary tool to bring Spain in line with the continent’s broader anti-migration stance. Domestically, the letter allows national leaders to present themselves as tough and resolute on an issue that can bring down incumbents.
However, in an effort to close ranks and fortify their positions at home, they assumed an incoherent position that will continue to sow doubt the next time that a crisis emerges. The fact that the letter was written by national leaders and addressed to the EU’s leadership further shows the limits of supranational crisis response.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year, policymakers, think tanks, and pundits across Europe have been exploring what a post-American alliance would look like.
Sometimes dubbed a “European NATO,” the concept envisages a future in which Europeans jointly shoulder the duty of protecting their borders. It assumes that an individual state may be overwhelmed and therefore seeks to leverage pan-European cooperation so that the continent’s capacity and willingness to meet challenges will be greater than the sum of its parts. Some advocates of strategic autonomy and European integration have sought to position the European Union as the natural heir to NATO if the United States were to formally withdraw from the alliance.
All alliances, whether informal or treaty-bound, remain hypothetical until tested. Short of a war, it is impossible to know with full certainty whether commitments are worth more than the paper they are written on. The Ceuta border crisis, however, was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how far states are willing to go when the border of an ally is violated.
A mass arrival of migration is not the same as a military invasion, but the way that leaders react in a moment of crisis still carries considerable weight. In 2020, for example, the Turkish government provoked a refugee crisis at the Greek border. European leaders condemned Ankara’s actions, but many Greek observers felt that they did not appreciate the severity of the threat to Greek sovereignty. As a result, the crisis exacerbated Greek fears that, in the advent of a direct military confrontation with Turkey, European states would find a way to blame Athens rather than coming to its aid.
Whereas the collective response to recent wildfires ravaging large swaths of the continent illustrated some of the EU’s potential, the political sensitivity around migration as well as memories of the 2015 refugee crisis resulted in European leaders sacrificing deepened cooperation in favor of short-term political convenience. Even though the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum took effect in June after years of negotiation, it took less than two months and one incident for European solidarity to unravel.
In the end, concern that the collapse of Ceuta’s border would lead to an uncontrolled flow of migrants to other countries proved to be unwarranted, given that it appears none of these arrivals crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. In fact, the overwhelming majority of migrants who breached Spain’s North African border returned to Morocco within 48 hours. Yet this outcome only further highlights what a strategic blunder the rest of Europe’s reaction—which the Spanish government criticized as “selfish, polarising and unlawful”—has been.
The European letter was co-organized by the Italian and Danish governments, though just a few months ago, it was Denmark that looked to its EU allies for support in order to defend Greenland from a possible annexation by the United States. Italy also made the decision to suspend the Schengen agreement and reimpose controls with Spain, even though they do not share a land border and none of the migrants that arrived in Ceuta have continued beyond Spain.
Italy’s decision, in particular, is indicative of what a European response may look like in the face of a military attack. While NATO’s Article V does not have a suspension mechanism, it does allow each member of the alliance to make its own determination of whether to contribute and in what form. Amid ongoing Greco-Turkish maritime disputes and simmering Russo-Baltic tensions, there are no lack of potential threats to European sovereignty. Now, it is no longer unthinkable that an ally could be blamed for mismanaging its border and told this mismanagement justifies European inaction.
A “European NATO” assumes that all members are ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for one another. However, that cannot be credible when something far less dangerous than a war, which could turn nuclear, has resulted in ostracization. Cold War-era NATO was underpinned by a belief that any European conflict beyond West Berlin would drag the rest of the continent into it, along with the United States and the Soviet Union. However, as Ceuta confirms, border threats that are geographically restricted could lead to further selective application of sympathy.
Joint efforts to prop up Ukraine in the midst of its conflict with Russia have created a false self-impression among European policy elites. While it has led to increased military cooperation, the fact that Russo-Ukrainian fighting, with the exception of the occasional drone incursion, has not spilled over has meant that European Union solidarity was not truly tested. Now that it has been, its leaders failed to rise to the occasion.
The reaction to the scenes that broke out in Ceuta was, in many ways, a regression to the mean and a reaffirmation that the EU remains a collection of states. The Greek financial crisis, pandemic-era recovery efforts, and previous refugee crises were all examples that, when forced to choose between domestic concerns or finding a truly European response, leaders will almost always choose the former.
Instead of seizing upon the opportunity to demonstrate genuine cooperation, EU member states have relapsed into their habit of scapegoating. A military alliance made up of the same EU governments that failed in the face of Ceuta is unlikely to do any better in the face of greater threats.