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EU discusses fallout after thousands of migrants cross into Ceuta from Morocco · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Spain says there was no threat to the European Union's
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: visa free travel zone last week when in just twenty
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: four hours tens of thousands of people entered Spanish territory
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  Speaker 1: in North Africa known as Seuta. After an emergency meeting
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, the EU's twenty seven Home Affairs ministers declared
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  Speaker 1: their support for how Spain handled the border crisis. According
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  Speaker 1: to the Spanish government, at least seventy two thousand migrants
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  Speaker 1: entered from Morocco. Seventy thousand of those migrants have already returned.
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  Speaker 1: Madrid also said none of them have traveled to mainland Spain.
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  Speaker 1: We're joining me now is Carla Hobbs. She heads the
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  Speaker 1: Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and
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  Speaker 1: she argues that the crisis in Saleta has exposed several
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  Speaker 1: dangers and vulnerabilities for the European Union. Its hobbit. It's
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  Speaker 1: good to have you with us. I know that you
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  Speaker 1: argue that Morocco may have used migration as leverage against
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  Speaker 1: Spain in what we saw last week, what evidence tells
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  Speaker 1: us that this was deliberate.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me. I think you
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  Speaker 2: know the Spanish government hasn't publicly blamed Morocco, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and it's pointed to the recent Supreme Court ruling in
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  Speaker 2: Spain on returns, and it is true that there was
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  Speaker 2: a disinformation campaign built on that ruling. So, you know,
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  Speaker 2: social media Morocco was flooded throughout July with videos telling
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  Speaker 2: people kind of how to get to fail that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: tips on tips on how to go, and lots of
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  Speaker 2: disinformation surrounding the fact that they would be welcomed into Spain.
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  Speaker 2: So that that's definitely was a part of it. But
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  Speaker 2: I think that if you look at the rest, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the sheer scale of the numbers, you know of those
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  Speaker 2: that went through, you know, the reduced border controls that
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  Speaker 2: we saw, you know, migrants own accounts that their authorities
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  Speaker 2: encouraged them to cross. It all points towards a degree
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  Speaker 2: of Moroccan complicity. And I think also, you know, one
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  Speaker 2: can't ignore the timing. You know, just ten days earlier,
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  Speaker 2: Prime Minister Sanchez had traveled to Algiers to relaunch relations
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  Speaker 2: with Morocco's regional rival. It also fits quite a long
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  Speaker 2: established pattern that we've seen of Morocco using migration as
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  Speaker 2: a coercive tool against Spain to extract concessions from Madrid.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 2: So you know, in twenty twenty one, when there was
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  Speaker 2: a diplomatic rift over the Western Sahara, we saw Rabat
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  Speaker 2: allow you know, nine thousand migrants in to fild that.
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  Speaker 2: So there's definitely a significant precedent and I think it's
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  Speaker 2: hard to deny that Morocco had some involvement in this.
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  Speaker 1: Well, certainly Spain cannot argue that this had never happened before.
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  Speaker 1: But Spain is saying that it had no intelligence warning
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of people are going to ask, how
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  Speaker 1: can tens of thousands of people move towards one border
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  Speaker 1: in just a matter of hours without authorities at least
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  Speaker 1: sinsing that something is in the works.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think on that front, it's it's it's
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  Speaker 2: going to be hard to establish the facts. You know,
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  Speaker 2: Spain has an interest in not escalating things with Morocco,
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  Speaker 2: so you know, it's not going to publicly point, you know,
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  Speaker 2: do a blame game. There's this fact fits a pattern
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  Speaker 2: of Spain kind of when these things happen, just saying
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  Speaker 2: that it's cooperating with Morocco. This is because you know,
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  Speaker 2: Spain depends on in the very immediate term on Morocco
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  Speaker 2: co operating on on returns, but then in the in
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  Speaker 2: the medium and long term on on migration and security cooperation.
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  Speaker 2: So I think, you know, getting into the weeds of
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  Speaker 2: exactly what happened in the run up to the event
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  Speaker 2: is going to be quite difficult, and establishing exactly what
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  Speaker 2: happened may be quite challenging.
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  Speaker 1: Let me ask you about what we're seeing here inside
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  Speaker 1: the European Union. You know, there were several days right
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  Speaker 1: after the migrant incident in Sauta where you had countries
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  Speaker 1: that were blaming Spain for what had happened. Today we
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  Speaker 1: heard interior ministers from the European Union praising Spain's response.
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  Speaker 1: Is that a genuine change of position or are these
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  Speaker 1: politicians just engaging in political damage control?
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  Speaker 2: Yes? I mean so the kind of display of solidarity
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  Speaker 2: today I think, yes, comes a little bit too late,
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  Speaker 2: as it were, I mean, it is necessary, but it
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  Speaker 2: really comes after a pretty remarkable week. I mean, as
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  Speaker 2: you were saying, we saw, you know, a public diplomatic
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  Speaker 2: start breaking out, you know, between Spain and Morocco and
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  Speaker 2: between Spain and Italy, as between Spain and Morocco, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and instead of showing solidarity, you know, particularly as a
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  Speaker 2: southern European tree which has also experienced mass of regular
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  Speaker 2: migration and received Europeans solidarities. A response, Italy blamed it
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  Speaker 2: on Spain's migration policy and you know, proceeded to suspend
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  Speaker 2: sheng in, you know, and then seeing other countries kind
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  Speaker 2: of join join the bandwagon. You know, Denmark, who it
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  Speaker 2: should be remembered, was on the receiving end of a
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  Speaker 2: great deal of European solidarity when it came went to
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  Speaker 2: President Trump making moves on Greenland. So you know, these
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  Speaker 2: were the two countries, Italy and Denmark that actually got
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  Speaker 2: twenty others to sign up to a letter blaming Sanchez's
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  Speaker 2: immigration policy. I think, you know, it was pretty remarkable
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  Speaker 2: actually to see EU member states turn on another in
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  Speaker 2: such a shocking display of disunity. So, you know, it's
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  Speaker 2: good that they're talking solidarity today, but I think the
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  Speaker 2: lack of solidarity that would shown at the time, you know,
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  Speaker 2: won't be forgotten in Spain or by countries that are
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  Speaker 2: kind of seeking to verse the EU the way Morocco did.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Critics also blame Spain's decision to regularize more
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  Speaker 1: than a million micro it's already living there, even without
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  Speaker 1: proof of a poll effect. Did Madrid create the perception
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  Speaker 1: that Spain's door was open to anybody?
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  Speaker 2: No, you know, I think we have to separate this out.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you don't get tens of thousands of people
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  Speaker 2: at one crossing in a single day because of a
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  Speaker 2: regularization that was announced, you know, back in January. You know,
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  Speaker 2: you get it when board controls on the other side
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  Speaker 2: are stood down, you know. So I think, you know,
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  Speaker 2: this kind of conflation of regularization with weaponization of migration
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  Speaker 2: is a complete fallacy, you know. And also on the
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  Speaker 2: regularization policy itself, you know, it isn't a kind of
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  Speaker 2: radical invention of the Sanchez government. You know, Spain has
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  Speaker 2: had various regularization streams, you know, in the last kind
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  Speaker 2: of into years, and actually various of them were administered
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  Speaker 2: by conservative governments and they didn't have the same the
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  Speaker 2: same effect. And you know, we're also seeing several of
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  Speaker 2: the countries which are criticizing Spain on this regularization, Italy included,
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  Speaker 2: have actually themselves done regularization campaigns, albeit perhaps slightly more discreetly.
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  Speaker 2: So I think, you know, it really, really cannot be Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it cannot it cannot be joined.
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  Speaker 1: Together, yeah, Carla Hobbes. Unfortunately we're at a time, but
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  Speaker 1: we appreciate your insights tonight.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you very much,