Spain’s ‘Sovereignty’

The breach of the borders of Spain — and in effect the European Union — in the Northern Moroccan enclave of Ceuta spotlights the Continent’s crisis of unchecked migration. The Socialist premier at Madrid, Pedro Sánchez, speaks of a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity” as thousands breached the border. Yet his outrage rings hollow in light of his recent sweeping amnesty to illegals in Spain. If that doesn’t amount to an incentive to jump the border, what does?No wonder calls are rising to suspend the free-travel rules between EU countries. The episode, too, is a function of political tensions between Morocco and Spain. Yet the border breakdown is best understood in light of the EU’s lax policies on maintaining strong borders. That, to a degree, reflects the continental superstate’s disdain for national sovereignty, which the EU aims to subsume via an “ever closer union” under the bureaucrats at Brussels. The concept of stout national frontiers has been synonymous with the rise of the modern West since the Westphalian peace treaties of 1648. Yet the EU’s increasingly post-national inclinations have been undermining this tenet of statehood for decades. Feature, say, the “practical guidance” on “border controls” offered to EU nations by the superstate’s Agency for Fundamental Rights. The guidance bars EU nations from using force in nearly all cases to protect borders.“Don’t use force,” the guidance asserts, “unless necessary, proportionate, and justified under national, EU and international law to achieve a legitimate aim.” The EU guidance urges border officials to “be aware that the use of the force can have different forms,” including “the use of your hands and body,” any “instruments of constraint,” or even, heaven forfend, “the use of weapons, including firearms.”On this head border authorities are directed to an EU regulation dating to November 2019. “If a firearm is used” during efforts to control the border, the regulation states, “statutory staff deployed as members of the teams shall ensure that such use causes the least possible injury and minimises injury and damage to the greatest possible extent.” In other words, the continent’s sentinels are directed to keep those pistols holstered.Officials, too, are told to “make every reasonable effort to resolve a situation using non-violent means first,” per the EU, via tactics like “persuasion, negotiation, or mediation.” The inefficacy of these methods, though, is underscored at the Ceuta debacle, during which video footage depicted border police standing by as migrants walk over. The EU’s legalistic caveats make it nigh-impossible to maintain a deterrent, even if force is an option as only a last resort. Lest any migrants feel unwelcome by a patrolled border, or even a barrier barring unchecked entry, the EU guidance, too, has directions for member nations. “If the border is fenced,” the EU avers, authorities are told to “indicate to third-country nationals” who “wish to request asylum how they can reach a place where they can physically request asylum in safety.” EU nations are advised to “consider using written signs as well.”With rules like these in place, Europe has in recent years seen a wave of migration that has strained the continent and raised the prospect of what President Trump called “civilizational erasure.” While the EU has of late been tightening its lax policies and even mooting the idea of returning illegal migrants to their home countries, the breakdown of order at Ceuta is a setback for efforts to convince would-be migrants that Europe’s borders have any meaning.

Spain’s ‘Sovereignty’

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