Ceuta: Europe pays Morocco 500 million euros to close a border its gendarmes open
Lucía Ortega — Madrid, Espagne — 2026-09-24
Fifty thousand people crossed the Ceuta border on 30 and 31 July 2026. The European Union had approved five hundred million euros so that this would not happen. And a Spanish police report, handed to a judge, establishes that Moroccan gendarmes told migrants where to swim.
This report has to be read. It was not written by a Moroccan opponent, nor by Algiers, nor by a social network. It was written by the Comisaría General de Extranjería y Fronteras — Spain's border police directorate — and it was revealed by the daily ABC on 3 September 2026. Its words, in Spanish, are these:
“Total permisividad, indicaciones de por dónde nadar y escasa presencia policial.”
Total permissiveness. Directions on where to swim. Sparse police presence.
This is not an impression. It is an administrative finding, made by civil servants who put their signature to it.
What the report establishes
The investigators questioned the migrants who entered Ceuta. The report notes that they say “in a practically unanimous way” — almost all of them — that Moroccan police officers “not only remained passive in the face of the entry attempts, but told them to go through the water, in the area of the Espigón de El Tarajal, and not through the other access points”.
The report goes further, and this is where it becomes damning. The Spanish police write that they detected:
- uniformed officers of the Moroccan security forces giving directions to migrants to enter Spain;
- those same officers managing the flow of people towards predetermined access areas;
- and, more serious still, people in civilian clothes giving instructions to the Moroccan security forces themselves.
These images exist. The report specifies that they were entered into the judge's case file.
And the satellite images of 30 July — which the police consulted — show no police or military deployment at the beach access points, nor on the Espigón, nor on the roads and roundabouts running from Castillejos to El Tarajal. The deployment is concentrated exclusively at the entrance to the border post.
In other words: the border was guarded where no one crosses, and open where people do.
The report finally notes that the date of 30 July is not neutral: it is Throne Day, with the King of Morocco, the entire state apparatus and an international presence gathered in the immediate vicinity of Ceuta. The Spanish police call this tacit consent.
The money
Now here is the part that is never told.
The European Parliament wanted to know how much money was going from Brussels to Rabat for migration control. The answer was never the subject of a European Commission press release. It came in a written reply from Ylva Johansson, then European Commissioner for Home Affairs, in March 2023, to a question from a Belgian MEP. Her sentence, quoted by the Spanish daily Público:
“The Commission announced an indicative assistance package of 500 million euros for Morocco in the field of migration, for the period 2021-2027.”
Five hundred million euros. Over seven years. To police a border.
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What Europe has paid Morocco for migration control (official sources)
!Morocco migration control 2021-2027 (Johansson reply, March 2023) | 500 | €m
Already committed for migration 2021-2024 (Commission) | 222 | €m
Budget support for Morocco's migration strategy | 160 | €m
Morocco envelope 2026, decision of 29/07/2026 | 148 | €m
Equipment delivered via FIIAPP 2019-2025 (El Debate) | 45,1 | €m
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And that is only one budget line. To it must be added the 1,15 billion euros of bilateral NDICI-GE aid for 2021-2025, the 1,4 billion for 2014-2020, the 624 million of programmes announced in 2023 — including 152 million in budget support for migration — and the new regional envelope of 675 million euros for migration in North Africa over 2025-2027, which explicitly includes 140 million for “migration governance and management, including security, borders and the fight against trafficking”.
The European Commission itself writes it, in black and white, in its official fact sheet on Morocco: the kingdom is “the leading recipient of EU technical and financial cooperation in the neighbourhood region, with the exception of Palestine”.
On 3 September 2026, in the middle of the Sebta crisis, the Commission's spokesperson for home affairs, Markus Lammert, confirmed that funding would continue until 2027 and called Morocco a “strategic partner”. No suspension. No review. On the eve of the publication of the police report.
The trucks “authorised for troop transport”
There is a second file, and it is more embarrassing for Madrid than for Rabat.
On 3 September 2026, the Spanish daily El Debate published the details of the contracts signed by FIIAPP — a Spanish public foundation — on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The newspaper says it had access to the list of contracts awarded to Morocco.
The total: 45,1 million euros between 2019 and 2025, paid out of European funds allocated to Spain for migration management policies. What these contracts delivered:
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What Spain delivered to Morocco via FIIAPP, on European funds (El Debate, 03/09/2026)
Off-road and special vehicles | 399 | units
Thermal and night cameras and sights | 669 | units
Support tripods for optical equipment | 281 | units
Trucks, some of them “authorised for troop transport” | 41 | units
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“Habilitados para el transporte de tropas.” The phrase does not come from a leaflet. It appears in the specifications themselves, those of the public contract awarded by the foundation. Eighteen 4x4 flatbed trucks, for 2 209 254,30 euros.
And the pace of these deliveries tells a story on its own. 39,1 million euros in the years 2019 and 2020 alone, then only 5,9 million over the following five and a half years — and the equipment changes in nature: ambulances, refrigerated trucks, buggies.
The 2019-2020 package, El Debate details: 350 4x4 vehicles, 36 trucks, several of them for troop transport, fuel and water tankers, and 188 thermal and night vision systems to operate at night. Sources in the military logistics sector questioned by the newspaper estimate that this volume corresponds to the mobility and surveillance equipment of a unit the size of a brigade, some 6 000 men.
And one detail that should give Algiers pause: “Morocco alone has received from FIIAPP, and on European funds, a package of this military nature.” Neither Algeria, nor Tunisia, nor Senegal — all of them countries of origin or transit for the same flows — received 4x4 vehicles or troop transport trucks. To Algeria, FIIAPP brought road safety with the Directorate-General for Traffic, industrial innovation with France and Finland, and aviation security. To Tunisia, hospital management. To Senegal, security teams against human trafficking.
To Algeria, they taught road management. To Morocco, they delivered enough to move a brigade.
The result, in official figures
The migration control that Europe finances has produced this, according to data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, cited by Público:
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Irregular entries into Ceuta — official Spanish data (Público)
!2025 — last full year | 3 323 | people
2021 — reference year | 753 | people
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Multiplied by five. And if Ceuta and Melilla are added together: 1 845 people in 2021, 3 850 in 2025. Not counting those who crossed the concertinas — the anti-climb blades — and are therefore not recorded.
Brussels voted, and cut nothing
On 17 September 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Sebta crisis: 339 votes for, 225 against, 16 abstentions.
The text does not suspend the association agreement between the European Union and Morocco. It imposes no economic sanctions. It cuts no funding. The demand to suspend all aid to Rabat immediately, carried by the amendment of the Spanish party Vox, did not pass.
Parliament merely calls on Spain and Morocco to strengthen their cooperation on the return and readmission of migrants, and to make certain economic advantages conditional — in principle — on the effectiveness of that cooperation.
Translation: Europe has noted the failure, and decided to keep paying.
The route itself does not change
One last element remains, and it closes the file.
A report by the Spanish Department of National Security, relayed by Hespress, describes the journey of Moroccan hashish: loaded off the Atlantic coast of Morocco, carried by sea to Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea, then moved back up overland across the Sahel to Libya, from where it sets off again towards Europe or the Middle East.
It is exactly the migrants' corridor. The networks, the report specifies, engage in “cocaine-for-hashish exchanges” — the same vessels, in both directions. More than 600 “go-fast” speedboats are suspected in the Strait of Gibraltar alone. Light aircraft and drones are back.
The merchandise and the men take the same route, on the same boats, with the same intermediaries. This is not a thesis. It is an official report.
What this means
The European Union pays 500 million euros so that Morocco guards its border. A report by the Spanish police establishes that, on 30 and 31 July 2026, Moroccan gendarmes showed migrants where to swim, managed the flow towards the crossing points, and that men in civilian clothes gave orders to the security forces. Images were handed to a judge.
The European Commission called Morocco a “strategic partner” and kept the payments.
The European Parliament voted, and cut nothing.
And the number of people entering Ceuta irregularly has been multiplied by five.
There is no comment to add. It is enough to put the figures side by side.
Sources: ABC, 03/09/2026 — “Total permisividad, indicaciones de por dónde nadar y escasa presencia policial”: el informe que señala a Marruecos · Público, 12/08/2026 — Marruecos se embolsa cientos de millones de la UE para controlar las fronteras mientras los cruces no paran de crecer desde 2021 · El Debate, 03/09/2026 — Exteriores ha dado a Marruecos 45,1 millones para “cooperación fronteriza” que se está usando de manera militar · Bladi.net, September 2026 — After Sebta, Brussels does not cut the 500 million intended for Morocco · European Commission, official fact sheet MOROCCO — Euro-Moroccan partnership for shared prosperity, updated 11/2024 · European Commission, implementing decision C(2026) 5364 of 29/07/2026, published on 04/08/2026 · European Parliament, resolution of 17/09/2026 (339/225/16) · Hespress, Spain reports over 600 suspected go-fast boats as Morocco hashish route reemerges, based on the Spanish Department of National Security · Eurostat, 2025 populations · Council of the European Union, document 13516/25 of 03/10/2025 (member state contributions, 2025 budget).