Ben Pawlowski
PRIME Minister Pedro Sanchez is facing calls to declare an official state of ‘migratory emergency’ for the whole of Spain as concern over small boat crossings continue to rise.
Currently, only the Canary Islands and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla are ‘in a situation of migratory collapse’, thanks to their proximity to Africa.
The route between the western coast of Africa and the Canary Islands is widely regarded as the world’s most dangerous migration route, where some 4,808 deaths were recorded in the first five months of 2024, equating to 33 deaths a day or one every 45 minutes.
However, the conservative Partido Popular (PP) opposition, led by Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, have urged the Spanish government to declare a state of ‘migratory emergency’ for the whole of the national territory.
Their motion came on the same day that the PSOE socialists, their left-wing coalition partner Sumar, and Coalicion Canaria presented a bill in Congress to reform the current immigration law.
The main objective of the bill is to secure a safe destination for the 6,000 unaccompanied migrant minors currently residing in the Canaries, even though the islands only have capacity to hold 2,000.
The amendment to current legislation, if passed, would force migrant minors to be distributed to other Spanish regions if one territory exceeds 150% of their capacity.
However, the bill is fiercely opposed by the conservative PP, who are instead calling for ‘a migration emergency to be declared for the entire national territory’ amid expectations that arrivals will continue to soar over the summer.
This, the PP claim, would allow all of Spain’s autonomous communities to take advantage of the emergency plan, rather than just migratory hotspots such as the Canary Islands and the Spanish enclaves embedded on the northern African coast.
The PP’s opposition to the bill was criticised by Sira Rego, the Youth and Children’s Affairs Minister, who urged the party to put themselves ‘on the side of children’ and abandon ‘far-right policies’ on migration.
Iñigo Errejon, Sumar’s spokesman in parliament, told the PP: “Either you are with the policies of reception and human rights, or you are with the politics of hate and racism”.
The row comes just days after the far-right Vox party announced that they had broken coalition agreements with the Partido Popular in five regions after the PP agreed to a temporary measure to accept hundreds of unaccompanied children.
The two right-wing parties had previously governed in coalition together in Castilla y Leon, Aragon, Valencian Community, Extremadura and Murcia.
