The emergency session European interior ministers held Aug. 4 over the Ceuta crossings was not, in the end, a meeting of the European Council at all. The record of the European Council calls it an “Informal video conference of home affairs ministers,” a format that cannot adopt conclusions or take a binding decision. Every substantive question was deferred to the Justice and Home Affairs Council of Oct. 1-2 and to the European Council in October.
It did, however, settle the legal question in Spain’s favor. Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner said afterward that “no migrant from Ceuta entered the Schengen area,” and the presidency readout records that “there has been no onward movement to mainland Spain or other member states.”
This has been the law since 1991. Spain’s Foreign Ministry has published the guidelines in English. Ceuta and Melilla operate under “a specific Schengen regime, unique in Europe,” established in the Declaration on the two cities annexed to Spain’s Schengen Accession Agreement. The only routes out of either city to continental Europe are by sea or by air, and the Schengen check is performed on departure—ferry operators and airlines are required to verify documents. Madrid calls this “a double filter: one at the border with Morocco, and a second one—the Schengen check—on departure for the mainland, so that irregular entry into the cities never constitutes an entry into the rest of the Schengen area.”
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen conceded as much in a letter to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Aug. 3, writing that Spain and Morocco “managed this efficiently and effectively, successfully preventing illegal movement onwards to mainland Spain and Europe” and that “the returns system in place worked”—four days after calling the images “unacceptable.”
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska put Spain’s figures at 72,000 entries and 70,000 returns, and told reporters in Brussels that “[Schengen was never at risk; Rome’s decision [to institute border controls] is incomprehensible](https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/topnews/2026/08/04/madrid-schengen-mai-stata-a-rischio-decisione-di-roma-incomprensibile_5c7addfe-1c35-4266-ba25-c2615191b026.html).”
Josep Borrell, the EU’s former High Representative for Foreign Affairs, told Spain’s Cadena SER on the morning of the meeting that “European solidarity died in Ceuta, because many countries put national electoral interests ahead of solidarity and loyal cooperation.” He named Italy first among the offenders, said the response of the 22 governments was “absolutely the contrary of what one could have expected,” and warned that “it is not possible for populist demagoguery to take the place of the rule of law.” Borrell also described Spain as “a country that has suffered a hybrid attack,” urged cooperation with Morocco, and called for helping the 3,000 to 5,000 people still in Ceuta, “because they are human beings.”