18/09/2026
On 17 September 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Ceuta migration crisis by 339 votes to 225, with 16 abstentions. The text tabled by the centre-right European People’s Party, and blamaing the Spanish govenelt’migrant regularisation policy for the crisis., passed thanks to the votes of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), Patriots for Europe, and Europe of Sovereign Nations, the Parliament’s three far-right groups. It’s a pattern our EU Far Right Tracker has been documenting since 2024: when immediate consensus lacks, the EPP often finds that the fastest route to a majority runs through the far right rather than through its official partners in the “von der Leyen coalition.”
Ceuta fits the pattern closely. After the mass irregular crossing into the Spanish enclave at the end of July, MEPs spent weeks trying to negotiate a joint text between the EPP, the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) and Renew Europe. The talks collapsed. S&D accused the EPP of abandoning European consensus in favour of the radical right rather than accept a text that didn’t blame the Spanish government’s migrant regularisation policy for the crisis. The EPP went ahead anyway: the adopted resolution expresses “serious concern” over Spain’s large-scale regularisation as a “pull factor”, exactly the framing S&D had rejected.
The EPP Group blamed Pedro Sánchez’s government directly for failing to protect the border. The S&D Group instead framed Ceuta as a hybrid attack requiring EU solidarity with Spain, not blame. When the vote came, EPP, ECR, Patriots and ESN lined up together; S&D, the Greens/EFA and the Left voted against, and Renew’s delegation split.
The Ceuta resolution is the latest entry of the EU Far Right Tracker.