An Unsettling Déjà-vu: The May 2021 Ceuta Events

Abstract

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(1), 79-85 | European Forum Insight of 11 May 2022 | (Table of Contents) I. The background. - II. The precedents. - III. Reverse conditionalities. - IV. Ceuta: beyond blackmail. - V. A community of interests. - VI. Conclusion. | (Abstract) To properly understand the various factors that have been conducive to diplomatic tensions be-tween Spain and Morocco, following the mass arrival of migrants crossing the border of the Ceuta enclave in May 2021, we need to move the debate beyond the recurrent reference to "blackmail". The instrumentalization of migration for political and diplomatic purposes is not uncommon in the his-tory of international relations. Nor is it new in the governance of migration. This Insight argues that the May 2021 events are symptomatic of a now consolidated community of interests between Mo-rocco, on the one hand, and the EU and its Member States, on the other, that has gradually affected their relations, across various issue-areas, for better and for worse.

Keywords

• interdependence
• instrumentalization
• morocco
• spain
• reverse conditionalities
• community of interests