Spain Approves Asylum Bill After 80,000 Ceuta Crossings as EU Pact Pushes Faster Returns
Updated
Updated · Euronews · Aug 25
Spain Approves Asylum Bill After 80,000 Ceuta Crossings as EU Pact Pushes Faster Returns
3 articles · Updated · Euronews · Aug 25
Summary
Spain approved a draft immigration and asylum bill on Tuesday that would bring national law into line with the EU migration pact and add the bloc’s screening procedure.
The overhaul follows July’s Ceuta surge, when about 80,000 people crossed illegally from Morocco in one day, intensifying pressure on Madrid to speed rejections and returns.
Around 5,000 migrants still remain in Ceuta, including an estimated 2,000 minors, and a plan to transfer children to mainland Spain has stalled amid divisions between the government, opposition and Ceuta authorities.
Madrid also declared the Ceuta crisis a national security matter and called for a single command, after criticism that it reacted too slowly to a city overwhelmed by the influx.
The bill reaches beyond Ceuta to the Canary Islands and marks a harder Spanish line after it had initially resisted parts of the EU pact on more humane migration grounds.