In 2021 and 2022, crises at the Morocco-Spain border became a major issue in Spanish politics. Drawing on new research, José Javier Olivas Osuna examines how Spanish politicians reacted to the crises.
The end of the Cold War and the process of globalisation accelerated by information technologies made us briefly believe that we were heading towards a borderless world. However, multiple refugee crises, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, the invasion of Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas have brought the border back to our lives.
Whether we like it or not, the border remains a key element in the construction of political identities and a discursive resource for far-right populist leaders. Physical and political boundaries can be selectively employed by populist parties to sort people into moral categories and to create and exacerbate emotions such as fear, anger or indignation. These emotions help mobilise voters and gather support for radical policies. The ways in which politicians articulate the notion of border and refer to migrants and refugees reflect their conception of society and sovereignty.
Tragedies at the southern borders
The Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla are at the southernmost and only EU land borders with an African country. The ten-metre-high fences that separate them from Morocco constitute a visible manifestation of the notion of “Fortress Europe”. Similarly to what we can observe on several Greek and Italian islands, these borderlands have frequently been the sites of humanitarian tragedies and violence – places where gender, racial and socio-economic inequalities intersect.
Among those, two major incidents have shaken Spanish public opinion. First, on 18 May 2021 about 10,000 people – including over 1,000 children – crossed the border of Ceuta irregularly, apparently facilitated by the decision of Morocco to suspend temporarily the enforcement of the border controls agreed with Spain and the European Union. This was followed by thousands of summary deportations, later ruled as illegal.
Second, on 25 June 2022, another coordinated mass attempt to cross the border ended up with at least 37 deaths and dozens of people injured following a violent intervention by Moroccan security forces at the border with Melilla. Both incidents drew great media attention, but the way in which different politicians and pundits framed them diverged significantly. These events showed profound disagreements within the left-wing ruling coalition in Spain and among the main opposition parties.
Vox’s populist discourse
In a recent study, I analyse 45 speeches by Spanish MPs related to the tragic incidents in Ceuta in 2021 and in Melilla in 2022 in the Spanish Congress of Deputies and reveal a complex discursive relationship between populism and the border. These incidents became a window of opportunity for the radical-right Vox to generate a sense of moral panic, with hyperbolic populist discourses that reflected a reactionary sense of place. Vox depicted these borders as a source for relatively unproblematic and immutable identities and the people who cross them as strangers who do not belong.
Figure 1: Density of coded segments per political party
Note: The chart indicates coded segments per 1,000 words.
Vox contributions contained many populist and re-bordering references. Vox leaders referred to the refugees that attempted to cross into Spain as “raiders” and “human battle rams” and alluded to “incompatible cultures” and to an “invasion by substitution” replicating the Great Replacement conspiracy used by other far-right leaders.
They applauded the summary deportations and pitted “the people” against “immigrants” and “international elites”. Vox representatives spoke of “importing people” from cultures at odds with “European civilisation” and accused the NGOs working at the border of collaborating with human traffickers.
In sum, in line with what other radical-right parties have previously done in the context of refugee crises, Vox presented these attempts to cross the southern border as an existential threat for Spaniards and a justification for their draconian agenda regarding immigration. This is not completely new as Vox also tried to transform the COVID-19 crisis into a political one in 2020.
Other parties distance themselves from Vox
However, in this case, no imitation or “populist outbidding” processes can be observed as the rest of the political parties distanced themselves very clearly from Vox. Most speakers emphasised the humanitarian dimension of the problem and expressed concerns about the helplessness of the people in transit.
The representatives of the Socialist Party (PSOE) (the main party in the ruling coalition), the Popular Party (PP) (the largest opposition party) and Citizens (Cs) adopted a somewhat dispassionate tone to defend Spain and the EU’s border policy. Although they both used some antagonistic expressions such as “violent attack” and “aggression” when referring to the forceful attempt to cross the border in Melilla, and justified the actions of Spanish security forces, their discourses included many anti-populist de-bordering references too.
Other parties such as the left-wing Unidas Podemos (UP) and Catalan nationalist parties such as the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and United for Catalonia (JxC) used populist language with moral and antagonistic traits. However, this was not directed against those crossing the border, but against Spanish police forces and Vox. They also raised awareness about the injustices suffered by those seeking refuge at the border and suggested the need to facilitate their arrival.
It is also interesting to note that most speakers, except those from PSOE, severely criticised the action of Moroccan security forces. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, insisted that no one died within Spanish territory. Many MPs criticised him for implying a different value to the lives depending on whether they are lost on one side or other of the fence. This is an illustration of how these physical boundaries contribute to the establishment of hierarchies of humanity, which at least in this case most politicians rejected.
Despite Vox’s efforts to dehumanise those desperately trying to reach the EU and frame these incidents as grave threats for Spain, the references to the vulnerability and needs of migrants and asylum seekers were more frequent than those blaming them. Except for Vox MPs, most politicians participating in these parliamentary debates hinted at a somewhat more progressive sense of place. Their speeches reflected that these borderlands are a sort of meeting point in a wider and complex network of socio-economic relations.
This case confirms that the border and refugee crisis can be instrumentalised using a populist logic of articulation to justify exclusion and anti-immigration proposals. However, it also shows that border crises can also be seized as an opportunity by those who want to push a de-bordering agenda, expose the danger of radical-right narratives, and stress that the people attempting to cross the border were not the cause of the problem, but victims of it.
For more information, see the author’s accompanying paper in the Journal of Language and Politics
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Jose Luis Carrascosa / Shutterstock.com
