Back to discussions on Ceuta, now under way in Brussels (10:08), a senior Moroccan official claimed that Morocco had warned Spain that a recent Spanish court ruling that migrants arriving by sea would not face immediate removal was going to create “a problem,” AFP reported.
Spain’s Supreme Court ruled on 8 July that migrants arriving by sea should not be returned as quickly as others and Madrid has blamed criminal gangs for spreading misinformation about the ruling.
“We started engaging with the Spanish side around 22-23 July, when the networks began talking about this,” the Moroccan senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday night.
“We discussed this ruling and its impact. We explained that this ruling was going to create a problem. And it did create a problem,” he said.
The official also rejected any suggestion that Morocco was to be blamed for the crisis, saying “at a certain point, the Moroccan law enforcement forces could no longer confront the migrants because the numbers were very large,” and because “the pull effect was very strong,” he said.
“Today, it is up to Spain to find answers to the challenges posed by this ruling,” he said.
For what it’s worth, Spain responded to the ruling in recent days, installing new border containment structures that would provide them a legal claim to use an exemption provided in the court’s ruling and allow to send migrants back across the border.
