Blog Post | Ceuta and the Neighbour in Disorder: Lessons for Diplomatic Practice
Author: Juan Luis Manfredi Sánchez
Ceuta is usually read as a migration or security crisis. It is better read as a stress test of a specific model of diplomacy. Like the tests applied to banks, it subjects a system to extreme but plausible pressure to reveal what holds and what gives way. The model governs neighbourly relations between asymmetric partners through constructive ambiguity and personal trust. Built for calm, it now operates amid domestic polarisation, information disorder and transactional alliances. Three assumptions gave way: that ambiguity would be honoured, that rapport between leaders would translate into restraint at the border, and that European backing would come without conditions. The lesson for diplomats is uncomfortable. The most reliable guarantee of a border is not a taller fence but the quiet conversations that make testing it unnecessary.
Two audiences, one border
The "domestic turn" describes how diplomatic actors increasingly address home constituencies as much as their counterparts. [1] Every statement from Madrid is read at once by Spanish voters, EU partners and Rabat. Spain's interior minister stressed that the Western Mediterranean accounts for a tiny share of EU arrivals. Brussels sounded harder: the European Parliament's resolution spoke of "invasion" and hybrid warfare. Spanish polarisation has reached Brussels, and European solidarity is no longer automatic. Rabat has its own audiences. Appearing to yield to Madrid or Brussels carries domestic costs, so Morocco denies having relaxed controls and blames rumours and smuggling networks. That denial also works as a face-saving device.
Kornprobst's concept of crisis co-management holds that states usually respond to crises jointly rather than alone, and that success depends on whether their judgments and justifications can converge. [2] This is where the domestic dilemma lies. Publicly attributing responsibility, as Europeans do, secures solidarity for Spain but narrows Morocco's room to cooperate. The literature on coercive engineered migration distinguishes migration that is provoked from migration that is merely exploited. [3] Diplomacy often depends on that distinction remaining unproven in public. Reported Spanish assessments suggest that Morocco did not organise the mass crossings but tolerated them and then exploited them: exploitation rather than provocation. Leaving that verdict unproven in public gives both governments a dignified exit. The practical answer is to separate registers. Europe can speak of instrumentalisation in its texts, while Madrid and Rabat handle early warning, readmission and the return of minors discreetly. The 2030 World Cup, co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, is a shared project that rewards restraint.
The 2021–22 reconciliation shows what is missing. Spain delivered its support for Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara in one gesture, but Morocco's restraint remained a promise without mechanisms. Ambiguity is a loan with interest. Spain also lacks a ladder of responses between silence and rupture, and rupture is a tool for isolated adversaries, not an indispensable neighbour. [4] Intermediate rungs, such as ambassadorial consultations, targeted visa and readmission measures and EU levers, must be defined before the next crisis.
The border begins on digital screens
The trigger was reportedly a rumour that the border was open: information disorder with physical consequences. Future neighbourhood crises will probably begin as messages and only then become movements of people. Diplomacy therefore needs a new function: narrative early warning. Embassies, consulates and monitoring units should detect viral messages about the border and coordinate pre-emptive communication with Moroccan counterparts. The risk cuts both ways. Describing events as an "invasion" in European forums helps those who want a more restrictive application of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, including the Visegrád governments that contested it even before Ceuta. Ceuta becomes raw material for a quarrel that is not Spain's.
Alliances in a transactional order
Morocco has diversified its partners, with a US defence roadmap for 2026–2036 and upgraded relations with Israel. There is no evidence that these include support for Moroccan claims over Ceuta, and Washington still treats the city as Spanish. But diplomacy is also driven by perceptions, and Spain arrives weakened: its disagreements with the Trump administration and the Israeli government over the Middle East have reduced its access when it most needs it. Morocco offers stability and normalisation; Spain offers principles, which carry less weight in a transactional order. Moral coherence is not diplomatic effectiveness. Spain must decide what price it is willing to pay to keep its own positions on the Middle East while opening separate channels with Washington and Tel Aviv on the Strait, energy and the Sahel.
Within Europe, Madrid has two coalition options. The first is the Med9 group, to turn Mediterranean solidarity into shared responsibility. The second is a partnership with eastern-frontier states around a common definition of instrumentalised migration, already invoked against Belarus and Russia. It would strengthen Spain's case but tie it to a restrictive reading that strains the values it has defended.
What to watch
The October European Council is the first test. It will weigh the Commission's five-point plan and a reported proposal for an emergency framework that could temporarily suspend access to asylum under strict conditions. [5] Spain could end up both requesting solidarity and becoming the precedent for an exception. The Pact also faces its first major stress test here. With a Spanish general election approaching, the border may become campaign material, and Morocco's political calendar will shape its room for manoeuvre.
Three scenarios are possible: managed cooling through institutionalised co-management; a frozen conflict with recurrent probing of the border; or European securitisation that makes Ceuta a symbol of a harder policy. The best indicator of which will prevail is the balance between discreet diplomacy and public rhetoric.
Ceuta offers a preview of the borders of the future, where migratory pressure, strategic competition and the contest over narratives intersect. The question is no longer who controls the border, but who imposes the interpretation of what happens there. Diplomats cannot eliminate the tension between asking for solidarity and avoiding a rupture with the neighbour. They can build institutions that survive it before the next rumour tests them.
Juan Luis Manfredi Sánchez is Professor of Journalism and Researcher at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the University of Castilla-La Mancha.
[1] Andrew F. Cooper, "The Populist Challenge and the Domestic Turn in Diplomacy," The Hague Diplomacy Blog (2019).
[2] Markus Kornprobst, Co-managing International Crises: Judgments and Justifications (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
[3] Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration (Cornell University Press, 2010).
[4] Ricardo Arredondo, "Persona Non Grata and Political Rupture: The Spain–Nicaragua Diplomatic Crisis," The Hague Diplomacy Blog (2026).
[5] European Commission, five-point plan on external borders (September 2026).