Donald Trump has been doing it for months – using every opportunity to attack a man he regards as a dangerous socialist. Europe’s conservatives have been more circumspect. But last week’s dramatic influx of migrants, the biggest single day of irregular crossings anywhere in the EU for a decade or more, has given them the chance to pile in against Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. And they’ve done it with alacrity.
The crisis casts a spotlight on pretty much every aspect of contemporary politics, instant communication and the unrelenting surge by populists. It has given succour to the far right demonstrated the fragility of European unity.
The stakes could not be higher. In Germany, the far-right AfD is gearing up for success in three regional elections next month. In France, everything hinges on next spring’s presidential elections; victory for Marine Le Pen and the National Rally, with their pro-Putin leanings and strong support from Donald Trump, would call into question the future of the European Union and Nato.
Across Europe, mainstream governments are hanging on by a thread, often aping the messaging of the extremes to curry favour with voters, particularly on immigration.
Sánchez has been different. Despite intense pressure, he has refused to increase defence spending to the level demanded by Nato, refused to ingratiate himself with Trump, attacked his war in Iran and Israel’s destruction of Gaza, denounced climate change, and taken a different approach to immigration. He has defiantly argued that Spain and Europe need migrants to fill the gap of a declining labour force.
This left him vulnerable to attack the moment anything went wrong. And how it did.
The cause of the scenes in Ceuta, one of two Spanish enclaves within Morocco, recalled the wave of Syrians and others who flocked to Germany and elsewhere in 2015. The latest death toll – some people drowned attempting to swim to Spanish territory, and others were killed in a stampede – stands at 72, but with many people unaccounted for, it could be far higher.
Everyone is blaming everyone else. Theories and conspiracy theories abound. Right-wing politicians have portrayed Spain as Europe’s soft underbelly, its supposedly permissive language towards migrants as opening the door. Others see the dark hand of variously of the White House, the Israelis and Morocco, or all three working in tandem.
Then there is the Russia connection. EU and Spanish officials strongly suspect Kremlin trolls may have been involved in spreading disinformation online, suggesting safe passage for migrants from Ceuta into Spain and across Europe – even though the enclave is not within the Schengen zone and there is no direct access to the Spanish mainland.
Even though all but a small few of the 60,000 or so bedraggled migrants had been turned back to Morocco, the damage has by no means dissipated. European interior ministers were meeting online on Tuesday – it is peak holiday season, after all – to learn the lessons. The acrimony is deep on both sides.
In a furious letter on Saturday to the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, and the European Council President, António Costa, Sánchez hit out against “fake news” and “disinformation”, pointing out that “virtually all” migrants had been returned to Morocco after the army intervened.
He expressed frustration that previous incidents of this scale, such as the mass arrival of migrants across the border from Belarus into Poland and from Russia into Finland, were labelled as state-sponsored hybrid attacks, and met with solidarity from the rest of the EU, whereas on this occasion Spain was singled out for opprobrium for a problem it insists was stoked up by malign foreign forces.
Sánchez was particularly angry that 22 EU countries immediately attacked Spain’s handling of the crisis. The ringleader was Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who even called for Spain to be suspended from Schengen. Meloni is regarded by key figures such as Von der Leyen as a bellwether, as a bridge between the extreme far right and the mainstream centre right. In truth, in many European countries the difference is increasingly blurred.
The crisis has exacerbated the dilemma for what is left of old-fashioned conservative leaders, not knowing which way to turn in times of crises such as these, often ending up echoing the shrillest voices of the extremes in a desperate bid not to be ungunned.
One of those was Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, who demanded that Morocco take back the migrants “immediately” but was hardly forthright in defending the Spanish government. Spain has not forgotten how in March Merz sat silently, even grinning slightly, during one of those painful Oval Office occasions when Trump launched into a long denunciation of Sánchez.
Merz himself may not survive the next few months if the forthcoming elections results are as bad as predicted. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has barely nine months to go. Sánchez may be defiant, but he too is beleaguered as his wife prepares to stand trial on corruption charges, and he finds himself increasingly isolated diplomatically.
The more crises such as these take place, the more European cohesion frays, the more Trump and Putin smile and the more the far right licks its lips.
John Kampfner’s latest book, Braver New World, is published by Atlantic
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