Can Europe stay united in China trade battle? Ceuta migrant crisis offers a warning

The recent row over migration and Spain’s border policy suggests it may be hard for the bloc to stand together under pressure from Beijing “We had a real-time test of what happens when one member state was under coercion,” said Alberto Rizzi, a Rome-based policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, specialising in geoeconomics. “Everybody was very quick to jump on that.” The crisis was sparked on July 30, when an estimated 72,000 mainly Moroccan migrants surged into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, after Moroccan border controls appeared to collapse. At least 75 people died, mostly at sea, with the Spanish authorities estimating more than 100 died. The surge raised suspicions that the Moroccan authorities had weaponised migrant flows in response to Spanish efforts to improve ties with its neighbour and rival Algeria.

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