22 EU leaders turn on Spain's Sánchez over migration policy after Ceuta crisis

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Twenty-two EU leaders — including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — on Saturday took aim at Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s migration policies for undermining the security of the bloc’s borders.

The increasingly isolated Sánchez hit back that his EU partners were responding in a “selfish” and “unlawful” manner to the sudden influx of some 50,000 unauthorized migrants from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in North Africa.

While almost all those migrants have now returned to Morocco — and none crossed into the EU mainland — the 22 leaders raised “serious concern” over the threat to the EU’s frontier, and zeroed in on Sánchez’s move to grant legal status to up to 1.2 million unauthorized migrants as a “pull factor” that fueled the crisis.

In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, the 22 leaders made direct reference to the need for EU-level cooperation on policies such as Madrid’s migrant regularization scheme.

“We have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration, by coordinating our action, strengthening our external borders and addressing all policies that can serve as pull factors, such as the regularization of [a] very large number of irregular migrants,” the leaders wrote.

Madrid has pushed back against the claim that the country’s regularization scheme triggered the crisis in Ceuta, and has pointed out that none of the people who illegally entered the exclave would be eligible to benefit from the measure.

“This process is based on very specific conditions, such as proof of residency in Spain before January 1, 2026, and having resided in Spain for five consecutive months at the time of application,” said a spokesperson for the Spanish foreign ministry. Moreover, the deadline for filing applications for the scheme, which was launched in April, was in June.

But those explanations have not appeared to sway the EU leaders who signed the letter to Costa, Von der Leyen and Martin.

“We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalisation of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible. That a migrant’s illegal entry can turn into legal stay,” they went on.

In a sign of the increasing threat to the EU’s Schengen open travel area and the explosiveness of migration as a pan-European political issue, the letter’s signatories said they were ready to reinforce or reintroduce “temporary border controls” in the bloc.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gives a press conference on July 28, 2026. | Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images

In addition to Merz and Meloni, the letter was signed by the leaders of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.

They called for a video conference of interior ministers to agree on next steps. Ireland said it would convene a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council on Tuesday.

Rome and Copenhagen took the initiative in drafting the letter.

Sánchez slams ‘selfish’ counterparts

In his own letter to von der Leyen, Costa and Martin, Sánchez slammed his European counterparts who “have chosen to attack Spain and to call for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen Area.”

Italy’s Meloni on Thursday was the first to propose Spain be suspended from the 29-country zone where internal border controls have largely been abolished. Italy on Friday imposed restrictions on free movement from Spain to Italian ports and airports. France has also increased checks on the border with Spain because of the migration surge in Ceuta.

In his letter, seen by POLITICO, Spain’s Socialist prime minister argued that calls to have Spain kicked out of the Schengen zone are “not only contrary to European law, humanitarian law, and the principles of solidarity that bind us together,” but also “Europe’s long-term interests and to the most basic common sense.”

Sánchez defended himself from accusations that Spain was failing to protect the EU’s external borders, and cited data showing that his country had recorded half as many illegal entries as Italy between 2021 and 2026. He also stressed that it was not the first time that migrants had been weaponized against the bloc’s members, and recalled Belarus’ 2021 bid to sow chaos in the EU by facilitating migrant crossings into Poland and several Baltic countries .

Spain’s prime minister added the EU members that had backed the suspension proposal were “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest.”

“In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” he wrote.

Sánchez’s strongly worded letter underscores the growing tension between the prime minister and the plethora of EU leaders that have expressed support for Spain’s temporary exclusion from the Schengen area.

Those calling for action include right-wing politicians such as Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, a member of the nationalist Finns Party, as well as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose Social Democrats belong to the center-left Party of European Socialists.

Nicholas Vinocur, Zoya Sheftalovich and Sebastian Starcevic contributed reporting.