Sanchez ends his speech by directly addressing the residents of Ceuta, and acknowledging the extraordinary situation they are facing.
He pledges to restore the situation back to “normal,” and promises the government will “treat you with complete and absolute honesty.”
“Things will improve and the problem will be resolved,” he promises.
“We will not stop working until Ceuta emerges from this difficult situation: stronger, more prosperous, and more integrated with the rest of Spain and the EU,” he says.
Sánchez defends aid to Africa as a way of resolving migratory pressures
He says Spain needs to help Africa to grow, because pulling development aid would “ultimately increase migratory pressures, not reduce them.”
“For every euro cut from aid, we will end up spending ten more on borders,” he says.
He says Spain’s policy is not based on spreading “fear or doom-mongering,” but also it is not naive.
“It’s a model based on science, humanity, and solidarity,” he says.
He acknowledges it may not be popular in “the superconservative Europe we live in today,” but he believes it is “right and it works.”
Sánchez calls to see irregular migration as a 'structural' issue
Sánchez also defends his government’s track record on migration.
He says his government put in place a unified structure to look after Spain’s migration policy, which focuses on fighting criminal trafficking gangs, while improving legal migration routes.
He says the government’s policy is working, radically reducing the number of irregular crossings.
“The events in Ceuta do not call this model into question,” he insists.
He acknowledges there are some obvious challenges posed by the fact that people on the other side of the border in Ceuta have eight times lower income per capita.
In a particularly strong passage, he says:
“ But this is a structural problem, and must be treated as such. We could build a ten-meter wall, or … a hundred-meter one, … but if that misery and poverty persists or grow on the other side, there will always be someone willing to climb a taller ladder, dig a deeper tunnel, and take to the sea to cross [the border].”
Sánchez also suggests a push to fully integrate Ceuta and Melilla with the EU’s customs union, and bring them closer to the EU.
He says there were good reasons to not do it when Spain joined the EU in 1986, but the situation has changed.
He says Ceuta and Melilla must be treated not as “a border problem to be endured,” but “an integral part of Europe’s past and future.”
Expect that to be fairly controversial for many other EU leaders.
Sánchez also takes an interesting detour as he explains why his government did not commit to Nato’s 5% target on defence spending, arguing that Spain needs to respond to different pressures on the southern border.
He says it is not to diminish the gravity of the threat on the eastern flank – from Russia – but is a recognition of unique challenges faced by Spain elsewhere.
He says that means the country needs to focus on “specific security measures” to counter the threats in its neighbourhood, including cybersecurity and cyber intelligence measures.
Discussing next steps, Sánchez also says he will request a permanent Frontex presence in Ceuta and a Europol observation mission.
He says Spain is reviewing all existing procedures and will adopt “additional safeguards to ensure that the events of 30 July do not happen again,” as he lists a number of proposed measures to help Ceuta, too.
No evidence Morocco planned or orchestrated the Ceuta crisis, Sánchez insists
Sánchez insists that “no one has provided the government with evidence” that would clearly show that the Ceuta crisis was “orchestrated or carried out by Moroccan authorities.”
He says Morocco’s response could be divided into distinctive phases, with a 10-hour breakdown in their border control at the peak of the crisis. But he says their cooperation with Spain before and afterwards worked well, preventing thousands of further illegal crossings.
He says it remains to be determined what caused the 10-hour breakdown and whether it was their “inability to act or a failure to act.”
But he insists that he has no evidence that Morocco “planned or orchestrated this episode.”
He says this needs to be properly investigated with all decisions grounded in facts, not speculations.
Sánchez also strongly pushes back against suggestions that the government had been explicitly warned about the possibility of crisis. He says that all the reports sent to authorities did not “anticipate the scale or probability of what eventually happened.”
He says various bodies, including the EU’s border agency Frontex, only produced general routine reports, but nothing that included a warning against an imminent border surge of this scale.
Going through them one by one, he addresses individual reports and memos, saying that they included weak and conditional language on possible scenarios. He suggests the government will publish the documents for all to judge.
He says it’s two different things to issue a vague warning about a potential unspecific rise in the number of crossings and a large migration crisis of the size seen in Ceuta. “No report did that,” he insists.
He then turns to the question on the role Morocco played in the crisis. He begins by criticising comments from Morocco, and says Spain summoned the Moroccan ambassador last month to protest against them.
But he goes back to his previous point on how complex the situation is, with “several actors and factors.”
He once again points to misinformation on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok incorrectly claiming that the border was open, and the Supreme Court’s ruling meant that Spain would not return migrants that attempted to cross it.
He says these posts spread like wildfire on WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord, with maps and potential routes for corssing the border.
He says that the Spanish government’s intelligence so far shows no significant role for any state actors like Morocco, Russia or Israel behind these posts, pointing his finger at criminal networks of smugglers instead.
But he also says that a number of social media posts published during and after the crisis appeared to be aimed at “worsening the problem and eroding trust in Spanish and European institutions,” including accounts linked to Russia and international far-right.
Sánchez begins by paying tribute to the people of Ceuta, “who are enduring difficult times” as a result of the crisis.
He also reaffirms Spain’s sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla.
But says what is happening in Ceuta is “far more complex and multifaceted,” with “a convergence of numerous actors and interests” with no simple explanation for those who “prefer to live in a world of slogans.”
He goes through the facts of the crisis, including a reconstruction of the weeks leading to the border incursion and how the number of irregular crossings changed in those weeks
He says that a series of viral social media posts encouraging people to cross the border and misleadingly citing a recent Supreme Court return started appearing online on 30 July, leading to a surge at the border.
He says that with migrants crossing the border at the Tarajal breakwater, Spanish border agents could not intervene without risking a much higher number of drownings and victims. Some 141 people are believed to have died during the crisis.
Related: Why is Ceuta a migration flashpoint and how were so many people able to cross from Morocco?
But since then Spain succeeded in sending the vast majority of irregular migrants back to Morocco – which he hails as “one of the fastest return processes ever carried out in recent European history” – and installed a number of additional border measures to prevent further crossings , he says.
He admits the situation in Ceuta today continues to pose a humanitarian and management challenge , with many migrants still in the city – but that state institutions stepped up to the occasion.
He says Spain is responding to the crisis in line with international law and procedures that it would expect others to apply to its own citizens elsewhere.
But his frustration is palpable: throughout the statement, he criticises some reactions from political rivals and some media reporting on the crisis.
He also takes a shot at some other European countries for not showing their full solidarity with Spain. He does not name any country in particular, but in a pointed passage clearly aimed at Italy and Denmark – the two countries that led the public criticism of Spain – says the principle of solidarity should apply to Ceuta as much as it applies to Greenland and Lampedusa.
Morning opening: Sánchez to discuss Ceuta crisis in Spanish parliament
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez faces a tricky parliamentary session this morning, as he faces lawmakers to discuss last month’s migration crisis in the north African territory of Ceuta.
His appearance in the Congress comes after tens of thousands of people took to the streets last night to show their solidarity with the territory and protest again the government’s migration policy after over 70,000 irregular migrants crossed into Ceuta from Morocco.
A leaked police report claimed that Moroccan security forces played a role in the Ceuta crisis with “total permissiveness” to irregular border crossings, contradicting the Spanish government’s diplomatic line on the incident and sparking further fury from the public.
While the Spanish government argued that the vast majority of irregular migrants were returned to Morocco within the first 24 hours, some 5,000 are believed to still remain in Ceuta, including minors, contributing to a continuing humanitarian crisis.
The protests were officially organised by the nonpartisan Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, but with strong support from two opposition parties, the Partido Popular and Vox.
I will bring you all the key lines from Sánchez’s speech this morning.
Elsewhere, I will also keep an eye on other news across Europe.
It’s Thursday, 3 September 2026 , it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live .
He pledges to restore the situation back to “normal,” and promises the government will “treat you with complete and absolute honesty.”
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Jakub Krupa. Published 3 Sept 2026, 08:22 am.
