Refugees in Europe: Spain Becomes the Central Escape Route – Politics

Martin Dahms

Martin Dahms (mda) Profile

July 2018 – 22:29

Madrid – The fence is inefficient, "says Javier Ortega. "We have to build a wall high enough." At 10 or 12 meters, the secretary general of the small right-wing party Vox thinks. A wall for the "frantic" jump over the six-meter high fence of the former Spanish Ceuta or sister city Melilla. Last Thursday, more than 600 people in Ceuta wanted to get closer to their dream of living in Europe. They poured on the border guard of the Guardia Civil bucket of excrement or quicklime.

In Spain, so many migrants without an entry permit arrive this year as in twelve years . At that time, in 2006, they made their way to the Canary Islands, especially in large wooden boats on the West African coast. Now they try Ceuta and Melilla, but especially in the small boats of Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar in Andalusia. About 21,000 people landed on Spanish soil during the first seven months of the year, for the first time in many years more than in Italy. It took time for migration to become a major topic of public debate in Spain. When the newly elected Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, authorized the rescue vessel Aquarius, which had been rejected by Italy, to enter the port of Valencia in mid-June, some grumbled. But it was not yet a political storm.

You must be honest about migration issues, says Casado

He's starting to concoct right now. Ten days ago, the conservative People's Party (PP) of former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy elected a new leader, Pablo Casado, 37 years old. He said before the election in a conversation with the newspaper El País, as he imagined the future of the PP: "We must be right all the PSOE." The PSOE is the party of Prime Minister Sánchez, and to the right of one a lot of space. For example, on the far right edge moves Vox, which the PP would like to compete with. The proposed this weekend, the construction of the wall in Ceuta. Casado realized that he had to follow. The young PP leader was already clearly positioned on the right with his proposals for a stricter abortion right or a possible termination of the Schengen agreement, but he had not still touched on the issue of migration. On Sunday, he finally did it. "It is impossible that there are newspapers for all and that Spain can accommodate millions of Africans," he said. No politician had ever asked that in Spain. "When it comes to migration, you have to be responsible and honest, not populist," Casado continued. He did not address the words to himself, but to the government. Casado told Prime Minister Sánchez that he created an "attraction effect" with the invitation of "Aquarius": so many migrants would come to Spain because they thought their entry would be especially easy.

This explanation is difficult to maintain. Sánchez is in power only since June 2 and the migratory flows are not moving as fast. The number of migrants arriving in Spain started to increase from year to year, even before Sánchez, doubling from 2016 to 2017 (Rajoys), and this single month of January, more people arrived than the same month of three previous years. The reasons for the increasing attractiveness of Spain are less in Spain than on the other side of the Mediterranean. The more difficult the departure from Turkey and Libya, the more attractive Morocco became as a starting point for the crossing to Europe. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell calls the phenomenon a "gravitational law" of migration.

Migration can not be "blocked", warns Italy

Morocco is located at the narrowest point of the Strait of Gibraltar just 14 kilometers from Spain. It is no wonder that tens of thousands of people are now following this path, but that they have already done so in relatively small numbers. This is mainly due to the fact that Morocco has until now been the most willing border policeman in Europe. Foreign Minister Borrell is wary of analyzing Morocco's role. Either the neighboring country of the south, with which Spain has "no major problems", is "overloaded" by the arrival of new migrants, or it "facilitates" the trip to the north .

Anyway, he considers that "the Italian attitude" is migration for the biggest problem of the European Union. Migration can not be "blocked" but simply "channeled". The attraction Casado refers to PP is primarily political: the fear of migration pulls Europe to the right. Casado tries to know if this whirlpool could lead him.