The Partner Problem
What the EU's response to Ceuta tells us about how it actually works
By Our Brussels Correspondent
From June 2021 onward, the government of Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus began organising flights and transport to facilitate the crossing of migrants into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. The operation was deliberate, documented, and acknowledged by Belarusian officials within days. The European Union's response was swift. Within a week, the Commission had described the operation as a hybrid attack — the Council's own formulation — invoked the language of existential threat to European values, and begun preparing a new package of sanctions against Belarus. By November 2021, the EU had adopted a fifth package of sanctions specifically targeting the migration instrumentalisation, on top of four previous rounds already in place.
On 30 July 2026, an operation of broadly comparable design — organised online campaign, deliberate facilitation of border crossing, subsequently confirmed by Morocco's Interior Ministry to have involved an organised online campaign, the Moroccan gendarmerie having been observed by Spanish police showing unusual passivity or actively directing people toward the border — resulted in approximately sixty to eighty thousand people crossing into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. At least seventy-two of them died — a figure that, at the time of publication, continues to rise. The European Union's response was also swift. The Commission noted that the Schengen Borders Code contains special provisions applying to Ceuta and Melilla. Italy suspended Schengen with Spain. Finland posted on X.
No sanctions were proposed. None are expected.
The difference between these two responses is not difficult to explain. It requires only one fact, which is publicly available in the EU's own budget documents.
By November 2021, when the EU adopted its fifth sanctions package against Belarus, bilateral EU assistance to Minsk had already been largely suspended following the forced diversion of a Ryanair flight and the arrest of journalist Roman Protasevich in May of that year. There was, in other words, nothing left to lose.
Morocco is a different matter. Under the EU-Morocco Association Agreement, the EU-Morocco Partnership for Prosperity, and a series of bilateral arrangements covering fisheries, agriculture, and migration management, Morocco receives approximately €1.15 billion in EU bilateral funding for the period 2021 to 2025, supplemented by additional migration-specific allocations of approximately €193 million under separate instruments — paid specifically to Morocco to manage the borders through which, on 30 July 2026, between sixty and eighty thousand people crossed in a single morning.
The EU's relationship with Morocco is managed through what the Commission describes as a strategic and privileged partnership built on shared values. Those values are enumerated in the 2019 Joint Political Declaration between the EU and Morocco across eight pillars, including human rights and good governance. The declaration was adopted, and remains in force, as of the date of this publication.
The practical consequences of this arrangement became visible in July. While the EU response to the Belarusian operation included the phrase "hybrid attack" within seventy-two hours, the Commission's communications on Ceuta have not used that phrase at all, despite Morocco's Interior Ministry confirming the existence of an organised campaign, and despite Spanish police observing Moroccan gendarmerie directing people toward the border. The Commission's communications describe the situation as a migration crisis. The distinction matters, legally and politically: a migration crisis triggers one set of EU instruments; a hybrid attack triggers another, including the possibility of invoking Article 222 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which provides for solidarity measures in the event of a terrorist attack or man-made disaster, and the instrumentalisation provisions of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which were adopted precisely for situations of this kind.
Neither has been invoked. Neither is expected to be invoked. The Commission's communications on Ceuta have not used the phrase "hybrid attack." Asked by this publication to explain the distinction between the EU's response to Belarus and its response to Morocco, the Commission press office had not responded at the time of going to press.
There is a secondary question, which is what Morocco's confirmed involvement means for the EU's ongoing migration partnership with Rabat. The partnership is premised, at least in its public documentation, on Morocco's cooperation in preventing irregular crossings. If Morocco's own Interior Ministry has confirmed that an organised campaign facilitated a crossing of sixty to eighty thousand people in a single morning, the question of whether the partnership is functioning as intended would seem, at minimum, to merit examination.
The Commission has not announced an examination. The Association Agreement between the EU and Morocco remains in force.
At least seventy-two people died. Their names have not been published. The Commission's reference number for the communication acknowledging their deaths is C(2026) 5847 final. The document is available on request.