EU border security exposed by Ceuta migrant crisis, warns Polish legal scholar

The arrival of migrants in Ceuta has renewed questions over EU border policy, with one expert warning the bloc remains dangerously exposed to pressure from neighboring states and to the spread of disinformation online.

FILE PHOTO: A member of the Spanish security forces stands guard as a migrant minor from Morocco walks in the water after crossing into Ceuta by sea, amid recent mass crossings of migrants on foot and by sea from Morocco into Spanish territory, in Ceuta, Spain, August 1, 2026. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

The European Union’s vulnerability to migration pressure from neighboring countries was laid bare by recent events in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, according to Robert Grzeszczak, a Warsaw law professor speaking on Polish Radio 24.

Grzeszczak said the situation mirrored dynamics seen previously on Poland’s border with Belarus, and reflected a structural weakness in the bloc’s position toward third countries.

„The European Union is a very easy hostage of neighboring states, of third countries — it is easy to put it under pressure”, he said.

That weakness, he argued, is compounded by the spread of false information online. Social media rumors falsely claimed migrants reaching Ceuta by water automatically secured Spanish residency rights — a claim he said was untrue but had driven crowds to attempt the crossing regardless.

Grzeszczak said states such as Morocco could use migration as a bargaining chip, pointing to Rabat’s interest in preventing EU involvement in the status of Western Sahara. Other countries could adopt similar tactics, he warned, by allowing migrants to transit toward the bloc’s external borders. The core obstacle to a coordinated response, he said, is that migration law remains „very strongly political law”, dependent on the willingness of individual member states to cooperate.

Measures taken by Spain, including returning migrants to Morocco and considering an emergency declaration, offered only short-term fixes, he said, noting that a domestic court ruling had already ruled out the use of pushbacks. He also pointed to a separate false claim, spread online, that Spain’s Supreme Court had ruled migrants arriving by water were automatically on EU territory legally.

„That was not the case, but we see the power that deepfakes — falsified information — can have. They have such power that they kill, because thousands of people believed it”, he said.

Grzeszczak linked the migration debate to broader strains on the Schengen zone, saying governments have increasingly reintroduced internal border checks for political rather than security reasons, particularly ahead of elections. He warned that fear of migration is being amplified by social media coverage of crimes linked to refugees, which populist politicians then exploit.

„When we are afraid, some politicians try to exploit that by promising changes that will protect us”, he said.

He said migration flows into Europe are unlikely to ease, driven by armed conflict and what he described as severe climate change effects stretching from Syria to central Africa. Unilateral border measures by individual states would not resolve the problem, he said, arguing that only collective EU action could produce lasting solutions.

„Only solidarity will give us instruments that are effective, or at least largely effective”, he said. „We will not be able to prevent these problems from arising — we will have to deal with them, and they will keep taking new forms”.

(jh)

Source: Polish Radio

Radio Poland