Last December, the president of the Catalan employers’ association, Josep Sánchez Llibre, said “companies need immigration like the air we breathe and the water we drink. Spanish companies absolutely need immigration to be competitive.”
He did not have the scenes in Ceuta in mind. For those already worried about migration, tens of thousands of mostly young males descending on the Spanish enclave in north Africa will have confirmed their worst fears. Images colonise our imaginations before our reason has a chance to catch up, militating against anything except simplistic analyses.
The majority of Moroccans were sent back within days, and many of the more than 2,000 who remain are from sub-Saharan countries such as Mali and Somalia and the war-torn regions in Sudan. In other words, people likely to have legitimate asylum claims, unlike Moroccans who are typically found to be economic migrants.
The situation in Ceuta involves often-tense relations between Morocco and Spain, online disinformation campaigns and despair among Morocco’s youth. The recent regularisation of illegal migrants in Spain was one of the pull factors cited as a possible cause of the influx. Ireland conducted a small-scale regularisation in 2022, but the Spanish regularisation stemmed from a direct democracy initiative.
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Spain allows voters to propose legislation if 500,000 signatures are secured. A campaign for regularisation that began during the pandemic assembled an impressive coalition ranging from far-left activists to conservative business leaders. The campaign amassed 700,000 signatures by 2024.
[ Denis Staunton: Ceuta crisis lays bare EU divisionsOpens in new window ]
Although only the right-wing Vox party voted against taking the proposal into consideration in April 2024, legislation eventually became bogged down in the fragmented, fragile state of Spanish politics. It was eventually revived as a royal decree in April this year. Regularisation does not grant permanent status, citizenship or automatic long-term residency. Most people are guaranteed only one year’s residency (with the potential to renew for a second year), but they will then have to meet the criteria for standard immigration procedures.
According to recent Goldman Sachs research, Spain’s GDP is forecast to grow by 2.1 per cent in 2026, three times the rate forecast for the wider euro area. Spain has also recorded the highest productivity growth on a per-employee and per-hour basis among the EU’s four biggest economies since 2021. This economic growth is fuelled by immigrant workers, who account for 72 per cent of employment in domestic service, 45 per cent in hospitality, 32 per cent in construction and 31 per cent in agriculture. Spain’s population is ageing faster than many other European countries and a shortage of 1.4 million workers is projected by 2035.
What led to the mass migrant crossing in Ceuta and will it happen again?
Under these conditions, regularisation of illegal immigrant workers begins to look less like human rights and more like market forces. Academic research on another major regularisation of migrants in Spain in 2005 showed that it did not act as a pull factor, and that formal employment among immigrants increased without harming prospects for non-immigrant workers. In addition, tax revenues increased by about €4,000 per regularised worker.
However, Spain resembles Ireland in that the economy is booming, but ordinary Spaniards feel far from rich, facing a similar housing crisis. Unemployment among the young is also high compared to other EU countries.
The discontent among Morocco’s youth is much more acute and might be better described as despair. Morocco is emerging from seven years of drought. A massive earthquake devastated one region in 2023.
The country has a pronounced urban-rural economic divide. Research suggests around one in three Moroccans aged 15-29 are not in work, education or training, with rates particularly high among women. A wave of Gen Z 212 protests (named for the Moroccan international dialling code) swept Morocco in 2025.
As the Catholic Archbishop of Tangier Emile Rocha said, Moroccan youth constantly “see prosperity pass right in front of their faces, always heading elsewhere while never reaching them”. Is it any wonder that when inaccurate online rumours spread that they could not be repatriated if they swam to Ceuta, so many thousands took the risk?
Let’s look at push factors. A recent study showed that armed clashes, protests and riots in Africa rose in the months following the withdrawal of USAid. Many European countries, including France, Germany and the UK, have also severely restricted international aid while increasing defence spending.
Most people want to stay in their own countries, close to family and friends. Only the brave or the desperate will risk their lives to migrate. Asylum seekers still in Ceuta are living in horrendous conditions, with children sleeping outdoors on cardboard. Some 40 per cent of those who remain are children. There have been credible reports of rape of female migrants aged under 14, according to reporting by Euronews. Both voluntary organisations and the migrant reception centres are overwhelmed.
Europe cannot solve the problems of every fragile state. Open borders would be disastrous not only for Europe but for developing countries, which would lose their most determined and energetic citizens. But neither can Europe ethically base its economy on the availability of cheap migrant labour while demonising those who seek better lives, often at enormous cost.
