Spain sweats over its isolated territories in Africa

The surge of migrants into the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla last week has thrown Madrid onto the defensive over the status of its two autonomous cities in northern Africa — and Morocco’s long-standing claim to them. The ease with which tens of thousands of migrants penetrated the border has ramped up a sense of vulnerability to hybrid attack. And that alarm has only been amplified by a fear that traditional NATO allies in the U.S. and the EU are no longer fully dependable because of their political feuds with Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Buoyed by an increasingly warm relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, Rabat is seizing the moment and doubling down on its claims to Ceuta and Melilla, which it sees as occupied territory, in Morocco’s state-aligned press. But, more alarmingly for Madrid, that argument is no longer coming exclusively from Rabat. Questions over Spain’s centuries-old control of the fortress cities have also been raised in a U.S. Congress report, and by Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. It is a sign of the level of concern in Madrid that the government is now having to make public declarations on a point of international law that — only a week ago — it would have thought was self evident. “Ceuta and Melilla are not to be touched,” Defense Minister Margarita Robles said during a press conference on Monday. “Everyone must be very clear that Spanish territorial integrity and sovereignty are not up for debate.” The government’s rejection of Morocco’s claims has done little to reduce worries in Spain over what would happen if Rabat dials up the pressure. This week, national newspapers have been filled with columns expressing fears of a “Green March 2.0” — pointing out the parallels with Morocco’s use of a mass popular mobilization to take over the province of Spanish Sahara in 1975. José Manuel García-Margallo, who served as Spain’s foreign minister between 2011 and 2014 and is a member of the center-right People’s Party, said it was vital for Spain to show its control over the cities is not negotiable. “Do you think the British would have allowed 60,000 Spaniards to enter Gibraltar?” he asked. “I’d encourage this government to be a little bit more British.” “We should aim to be friends with Morocco,” he added. “But it’s important to ensure that even your friends understand that there are red lines that simply cannot be crossed.” Imperial legacies Ceuta and Melilla are among the few remaining vestiges of the vast Spanish Empire. They have been under Madrid’s rule since 1668 and 1497, respectively, and are fully-integrated parts of Spain — and the European Union. But since gaining independence from France in 1956, Morocco has consistently claimed sovereignty over both settlements, which it characterizes as “colonies” that are “occupied” by Spain. And those territorial aspirations have been underscored in the country’s largely state-aligned press following last week’s events. Migrants receive water on the beach next to the CETI (Centros de Estancia Temporal de Inmigrantes) in Ceuta on Aug. 2, 2026. | Adri Salido/Getty Images “The central question is no longer whether these cities will be reintegrated into their natural environment, Morocco, but how long it will take and how many human tragedies will have to be endured in the meantime,” wrote Le360, a publication considered close to the Moroccan royal household. Morocco’s claims on Ceuta and Melilla have lately been boosted by Rabat’s international allies — among them, a prominent Republican politician in the U.S. In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Español in April, U.S. Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, who serves on the powerful Committee on Appropriations, stated “Ceuta and Melilla are in Moroccan territory” and questioned whether the autonomous cities “are part of Spain or should be part of Moroc