Europe's Next Crisis

On July 31, about 60,000 young Moroccan men flooded into a Spanish enclave called Ceuta (Say-oo-ta), then most returned home the next day. But their easy entry alarmed Europeans, and it should have, because it was a dramatic illustration of how porous the continent’s coastlines and borders are. Europe is only as strong as its weakest link; it lacks standardized migration laws and has no single, unified “European Coast Guard” patrolling its 28,000 miles of coastline along the Mediterranean Sea. The incident upset the entire continent and pitted European Union members against the Spanish government. It also reminded Europe about the risk that a gigantic deluge of people could arrive, given traffickers and the possibility of more refugees fleeing the three “hot” wars in its neighborhood: Ukraine, Iran, and Sudan. Anti-immigration politicians had a field day over the incident, as did Russian Television with this headline: “US and Israel staged Spain migration invasion on July 31 to punish Madrid for its stance on the Middle East conflict, Tehran argues.”