Olivia Colman goes vulpine, Rupert Grint’s newborn is a monster and Joko Anwar makes a warmhearted violent ghost story set in an Indonesian prison
If I’d ever wanted children, the films showing at the 59th edition of the International Fantastic film festival of Catalonia in the coastal town of Sitges, south of Barcelona, would have soon set me straight. This year’s recurring themes were explosive parturition, chewed-up nipples and the fruit of the womb turning out to be at best sociopathic, at worst inhuman.
The theme was celebrated in an evil-kiddy exhibition at the Miramar Cultural Centre, marking the 50th anniversary of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s “fantaterror” classic Who Can Kill a Child?, some of which was filmed in Sitges itself. The expo traced the subgenre from 1956’s The Bad Seed, via Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, to this year’s Nightborn, in which poor Rupert Grint, as the hapless husband, is no match for the developing folk-horror bond between his depressed wife, their newborn “child”, and the spooky forest surrounding their house. Finnish director Hanna Bergholm, in her introduction, confessed it was inspired by her experiences of motherhood. Only up to a point, one hopes.
Helicopters rescued people stranded on rooftops as torrential rain swept across eastern Spain on Monday. Floods and storms killed at least four people, and shelter-in-place orders remained in force for more than 80,000 people. The downpour from Storm Adam cut off several towns along the Mediterranean coast as rivers overflowed their banks and streets turned into rivers. More than 2,000 people were evacuated, mainly in Oliva, and authorities carried out nearly 496 rescues in Valencia and Alicante, the Civil Guard police said
Spanish police sources say roughly 70 percent of recent asylum applications filed by Moroccan migrants in the North African enclave of Ceuta now claim persecution based on their homosexuality, a sharp change from the economic motives cited in the weeks after a large irregular entry in late July.
The report from Spanish newspaper ABC, citing Spanish National Police sources, also indicated that about 95 percent of the applications under review involve Moroccan nationals, and of those already decided, the rejection rate is estimated at about 99 percent.
Police have knowledge of at least 19 favorable decisions for people who entered during the July episode; five of those rested on sexual-orientation grounds.
The Unified Police Union (SUP) representative in Ceuta, Raúl Piera, told local media the share citing homosexuality has risen as high as 90 percent in the most recent filings. Applicants initially mentioned unemployment, family reunification or other reasons, he said.
After word circulated that economic grounds were unlikely to succeed, the accounts shifted.
“At first, they were not informed and did not know what they should say. But word spread,” Piera said.
Police sources have also raised the possibility that some applicants received advice, including from NGOs, on which grounds might improve their chances. While no fraud has been proven, the overwhelming amount of applications based on claims of homosexuality raises various red flags about the asylum application process.
Same-sex sexual relations are criminalized in Morocco under Article 489 of the penal code, which provides for prison terms of six months to three years. Spanish and European rules treat a well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of sexual orientation as a potential basis for protection.
Declaring oneself homosexual is not sufficient, however. Authorities examine the consistency of each account, personal circumstances and the risk upon return through interviews and documentation.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, speaking in Ceuta, said a mere allegation is not enough: there must be “a principle of objective and clear proof” and “a minimum of serious evidence.”
Nearly 1,200 international-protection applications have been formalized since the late-July arrivals, of which roughly 700 have been resolved, according to government figures. An estimated 10,000 of those who crossed on July 30-31 remain in Ceuta, some in informal housing or remote areas. Many others have returned to Morocco voluntarily or through other processes.
The asylum claims continue to be assessed individually by the Office of Asylum and Refuge. Rejection does not automatically result in immediate removal; applicants must be notified, and some may abscond or challenge decisions in court, though the share pursuing judicial appeals has been described as very low.
Spain’s Left has now missed its last chance to unite ahead of the country’s snap election on 29 November — a historic failure, not so much because the numbers don’t add up, but because it fails to offer an alternative.
The elections are seen as pivotal, with a real chance that the far-right Vox will enter the government for the first time since Spain’s return to democracy in 1978, in a coalition with the centre-right People’s Party (PP), which itself is expected to fall short of an absolute majority.
With that possibility on the horizon, the Spanish parties to the left of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), led by PM Pedro Sánchez, tried to agree on a nationwide joint list for the 29 November snap election.
But they failed because of a “war of egos”, as one political leader described it, and old grudges dating back to 2023. This has left many disillusioned and the left even more divided.
“These past few days have been very difficult … some people will be disappointed today, and for that I am sorry,” Ada Colau, former Barcelona mayor and leader of the Broad Front, said last week, as her alliance failed to reach an agreement on a joint electoral platform ahead of the election.
Spain’s electoral system disadvantages smaller parties, especially in less populated provinces. That means their votes are less likely to translate into seats.
In Spain, a country where a two-party system was the norm until 2015, it is puzzling that the “new” left, born precisely to break that duopoly, has ended up too divided to even compete with the mainstream.
So what’s the picture? On one side, the right is more aligned than ever: the PP and Vox are running separately, but the conservative party openly says it is willing to strike a deal with the far-right if needed. Liberalism is almost non-existent, even though Democracia 21 will run for the first time, but only in Madrid and Barcelona. And the left is divided.
War of egos
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Spain’s government has declared that the first phase of its emergency response to the Ceuta migration crisis has been completed, following the arrival of an estimated 80,000 migrants from Morocco at the end of July.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Friday, 16 October, that approximately 12,000 people had returned voluntarily to Morocco since August, while the authorities had expanded facilities to process asylum applications and return decisions.
Nevertheless, substantial administrative and humanitarian challenges remain in the Spanish enclave, particularly concerning people awaiting decisions on their legal status and unaccompanied minors. The situation has become an important test of the European Union’s revised migration and asylum legislation.
Unprecedented crossings at the African border
The crisis began on 30 July, when tens of thousands of people entered Ceuta from Morocco by land and sea following the circulation of misleading information on social media about access to Spanish territory.
According to an October briefing by the European Parliament’s Research Service, approximately 80,000 people crossed into the enclave during the incident, overwhelming local reception facilities and creating an emergency at one of the EU’s few land borders with Africa.
A subsequent European Parliament resolution referred to at least 141 deaths associated with the crossings, although the initial figure reported by Spanish authorities was lower. The exact number of people who crossed and the final death toll have remained subjects of uncertainty.
Most entrants returned to Morocco within days. However, thousands remained, leaving Spain responsible for assessing individual claims, arranging lawful returns and providing appropriate accommodation.
Ceuta’s geographical position complicates these procedures. Although the enclave is Spanish and forms part of the EU, travellers departing for mainland Spain remain subject to specific controls at its ports and airports.
Spain expands its processing capacity
During a visit to Ceuta on 16 October, Grande-Marlaska defended the government’s management of the emergency and announced that additional police resources would substantially increase administrative capacity.
The expanded temporary reception and processing facilities at El Tarajal are intended to handle at least 100 files daily, including applications for international protection and return procedures.
According to figures presented by the Interior Minister, approximately 1,200 applications for international protection had been formally submitted, with around 700 decisions already issued.
He also rejected allegations that the authorities had conducted concealed or involuntary returns, insisting that departures to Morocco had followed voluntary decisions or the appropriate legal procedures.
The minister said more than 500 expulsions had been executed through judicial or administrative decisions in recent months. These are distinct from the approximately 12,000 voluntary returns recorded since August.
The treatment of unaccompanied minors remains contentious. The European Parliament’s research briefing estimated that around 1,100 such minors were in Ceuta, including some who arrived before the July emergency.
Responsibility for their care has generated disagreement between the Spanish central government and Ceuta’s autonomous administration, particularly over guardianship, identification and the distribution of minors to other regions.
New EU asylum system faces a practical test
The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which began applying in June 2026, was designed to strengthen external border procedures while establishing clearer responsibilities for Member States.
Its provisions include identity and security screening, accelerated procedures for certain asylum applications and a solidarity mechanism allowing countries to support those facing disproportionate migration pressures.
Under the screening rules, the authorities generally have up to seven days to complete the initial checks required for people apprehended after irregular entry.
However, the Ceuta emergency demonstrates the difficulty of applying individual administrative procedures when arrivals occur in exceptionally large numbers within a short period.
The geographical concentration of arrivals means that adequate staffing, interpretation, legal assistance and reception facilities become essential to ensuring the system operates within its prescribed deadlines.
Spain requested assistance from Frontex, Europol and the European Union Agency for Asylum in August. The Commission subsequently announced €114.7 million in emergency assistance in September.
Political dispute over migration policy
The crisis has widened divisions between European governments over border enforcement and the regularisation of migrants already living within the EU.
Italy and several other Member States have questioned whether Spain’s separate regularisation programme could encourage further irregular migration. Madrid rejects the suggestion that the programme caused the Ceuta crossings.
The Spanish scheme covers only people who met the residence requirements by the end of 2025. Those who arrived during the July 2026 crisis are not eligible.
European Parliament members also adopted a resolution in September calling for stronger protection of the EU’s external borders and greater cooperation with Morocco. The resolution characterised the crisis as involving the possible instrumentalisation of migration, although Spain has said it has no evidence establishing Moroccan government involvement.
The continuing administrative backlog, the position of minors and the effectiveness of EU assistance will determine how quickly Ceuta can return to ordinary border operations.
Beyond Spain, the episode raises a practical question for Brussels: whether Europe’s new asylum framework can maintain border controls and individual legal safeguards simultaneously during an exceptionally large and sudden influx.
At least three people have died in severe flooding across eastern Spain after Storm Adam brought extraordinary rainfall to the Mediterranean coast, forcing thousands from their homes and leaving residents stranded on rooftops as emergency services struggled to reach inundated communities.
The worst flooding struck parts of Valencia and Alicante, where swollen rivers overwhelmed roads, flooded residential districts and disrupted transport. Authorities ordered residents of 145 municipalities to remain indoors as rescue operations continued on Monday, 19th October.
The disaster has revived memories of the October 2024 floods, which killed more than 230 people in the Valencia region and prompted widespread criticism of the authorities’ emergency warnings and response.
Thousands evacuated as rivers burst their banks
The coastal town of Oliva, in Valencia province, was among the worst affected areas. Approximately 2,000 people were evacuated from seven campsites as floodwaters spread through low-lying neighbourhoods, while residents elsewhere sought refuge on upper floors and rooftops.
According to reports from the Spanish news agency EFE, emergency crews were reinforced by Spain’s Military Emergencies Unit, whose personnel were deployed from their base at Bétera to assist local firefighters and rescue teams.
Helicopters were used to reach people trapped by the rising water. Roads became impassable, vehicles were swept away and several settlements were temporarily isolated as streams and drainage channels overflowed.
The scale of the rainfall was exceptional even for a region accustomed to intense autumn storms. In parts of Valencia and Alicante, precipitation approached 700 litres per square metre over approximately 48 hours, equivalent to 700 millimetres of rain.
Pego, in neighbouring Alicante province, recorded more than 600 millimetres within approximately 36 hours, placing considerable pressure on local waterways and drainage infrastructure.
Fatalities and emergency restrictions
Two women died during the weekend, including one swept away by floodwaters near Cabrera de Mar, north of Barcelona, and another whose body was recovered near Sagunto, in Valencia.
A third woman was found dead inside a flooded property in Oliva during rescue operations on Monday. Separately, a 64-year-old man died after suffering a heart attack at a flooded campsite in the same town, according to EFE’s account of the incident.
The regional authorities activated level-two emergency arrangements, enabling additional resources to be mobilised as local services confronted the consequences of prolonged rainfall.
At the height of the emergency, stay-at-home restrictions covered approximately 800,000 people. These measures were subsequently eased in many municipalities, although restrictions remained in force in particularly exposed districts.
Schools were closed in affected areas, roads were blocked and rail services disrupted. The situation remained particularly difficult where floodwaters had entered homes, commercial premises and tourist accommodation.
Renewed examination of emergency preparedness
Storm Adam has inevitably drawn comparisons with the disaster of October 2024, when catastrophic flooding in eastern Spain exposed serious weaknesses in emergency communication, evacuation procedures and coordination between public authorities.
That earlier disaster generated disputes over responsibility between regional and national institutions, particularly concerning the timing of warnings and the deployment of rescue resources.
The latest flooding places those questions back on the political agenda. Spain’s decentralised administrative structure gives regional governments substantial responsibility for civil protection, while the central government can provide military assistance and additional emergency resources.
The deployment of the Military Emergencies Unit demonstrates how rapidly local incidents can require national intervention when extreme rainfall affects several municipalities simultaneously.
The challenge extends beyond issuing weather warnings. Authorities must determine whether warnings reach vulnerable residents, whether evacuation routes remain accessible and whether emergency personnel can intervene before flooding becomes dangerous.
In communities close to rivers, floodplains and coastal drainage systems, these decisions become particularly consequential when rainfall accumulates over a short period.
European implications of repeated flooding
The disaster also raises questions about infrastructure investment and the application of European flood-risk legislation.
Under the EU’s Floods Directive, Member States are required to assess flood risks, prepare hazard maps and develop management plans designed to reduce the consequences for human health, economic activity and the environment.
Those obligations require national and regional authorities to identify vulnerable areas and consider preventive measures, including land-use planning, flood defences and emergency preparedness.
Extreme rainfall does not produce the same consequences everywhere. The effects depend partly on local geography, drainage capacity, urban development and the condition of waterways.
Meteorological warnings had also extended towards Catalonia as the weather system moved northwards, creating additional concern in areas where saturated ground could increase the risk of further flooding.
For the affected municipalities, the immediate priorities remain the completion of rescue operations, restoration of essential services and assessment of damage to homes, roads and businesses.
The longer-term examination will concern whether the emergency arrangements and infrastructure improvements undertaken since the 2024 disaster were sufficient to reduce the consequences of another major autumn storm.
Neanderthals left plenty of traces in the western Pyrenees, the mountain range that separates Spain from France. Stone tools, butchered animal bones, the leftovers of their camps. What nobody had ever found in Navarre, the region of northern Spain whose capital is Pamplona, was a single bone of the people themselves. On Monday that changed, […]
In today’s newsletter: Violent riots and looting have dominated the headlines, but the unrest gripping the country and beyond reflects deeper public anger over everyday issues
Good morning. I bet your weekend was better than Emmanuel Macron’s. On Friday, the evening before mass protests that were planned across France,he attended a Céline Dion concert in Paris with his wife, Brigitte, prompting comparisons to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. On Sunday evening, he was forced to give a televised speech condemning the “unbridled violence” and riots that erupted in French cities over the weekend.
The rioters that burned makeshift barricades of bicycles in Paris, destroyed the steeple of Limoges’ town hall and set fire to Lyon’s tourism office were described as “LE CHAOS” on the front page of La Tribune Dimanche, and “SCENES D’INSURRECTION” on Le Parisien Dimanche. By Sunday, protests had also taken placein Spain, Portugal and Italy.
The Vatican | Pope Leo told a crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square on Sunday that he would “gradually resume” his activities, at his first appearance before the faithful since undergoing an operation to remove a cancerous tumour from his lung.
UK news | A “well-known individual” is trying to secure a permanent injunction against the Guardian and ITN to prevent them from publishing details of serious allegations made against him.
US politics | Donald Trump fired his immediately embattled new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, on Friday evening after just five days in the job. The conservative commentator becomes the shortest serving occupant of the role in US history.
Reform | A Reform UK mayor is under police investigation for allegedly showing “naked and sexualised” images of himself to a female member of staff. Luke Campbell, a former Olympic boxing champion, is understood to have been questioned under caution by Humberside police.
Energy | The development of a huge AI datacentre hailed by the UK government has received a fresh setback after Microsoft pulled out of the project over concerns about power supplies.
Monday | The two-week biodiversity summit, Cop17, begins in Yerevan, Armenia, as countries come together to seek to protect nature.
Tuesday | The Covid-19 inquiry publishes its report on the adult social care sector.
Sunday | Incumbent Lula da Silva takes on Flavio Bolsonaro in the run-off of the Brazil general election.
When we can’t even afford to rent or buy somewhere to live, we have to ask: did we give the financial sector too much power?
Leilani Farha is the former UN special rapporteur on adequate housing
In the summer of 2021, I visited a homeless community in a park in Toronto, Canada, and spoke to one of the residents. He was living in a tent in the shadow of brand new skyscrapers, and had been homeless for about five years. At one point he swivelled around, pointed up at a crane on the skyline, and said: “Who are they building those for? Definitely not for me.”
He was right. And he captured something experienced by ordinary people around the world: the growing conviction that the housing system is no longer tethered to their needs. What he was pointing at is not just a housing crisis. It is a crisis of democracy.
Leilani Farha is the 2026 CBC Massey lecturer. This piece is based on her new book: Housing Inc.: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home. She is the former UN special rapporteur on adequate housing and the global director of the international human rights organisation, The Shift
Young people have been taking to the streets across Europe, including in Spain, France and Portugal, to protest over their unhappiness at the state of schools and the wider cost of living crisis.
In France, high school pupils have clashed with police in often violent protests over long hours, missing teachers, dilapidated classrooms and an opaque university admissions system. Pupils routinely miss months of teaching due to unfilled staff absences.
Around 4,200 years ago, in the dry south-east of the Iberian Peninsula, a society began building cities on hilltops, stockpiling grain on a large scale and arming its warriors with halberds (blades like axe heads mounted on long poles) and metal swords. Archaeologists call it El Argar. Further north, in what are now La Mancha, […]
Thirty-five thousand spectators. That is the capacity the authors of a new study attribute to the Roman amphitheatre of Itálica, in Santiponce, near Seville in southern Spain. It is roughly the crowd of a mid-sized modern football stadium, and there was not a single loudspeaker in those stands. Whatever happened on the sand had to […]
Italy has extended checks on travellers from Spain for another week, but talks between Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sánchez have opened the way for an end to reciprocal restrictions imposed after the migration crisis in Ceuta.
Italy and Spain have agreed to work towards ending their reciprocal Schengen border controls following discussions between Prime Ministers Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sánchez at the European Council summit in Brussels. Rome nevertheless extended its restrictions for another seven days on Friday, 16 October, as the two governments consider how to bring their respective measures to an end.
The decision marks a possible turning point in a dispute that has disrupted travel between two of the European Union’s largest countries since the summer. According to the notifications recorded by the European Commission, the restrictions concern air and sea connections between Italy and Spain, which do not share a land border.
The two governments have instructed their interior ministers to consider alternative arrangements over the coming week. Although neither side has formally withdrawn its measures, the agreement to coordinate their removal suggests that both capitals are seeking a way out of an increasingly uncomfortable confrontation over migration and internal European security.
How the Ceuta crisis reached Schengen
The dispute began after an extraordinary influx of migrants from Morocco into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta in late July. More than 72,000 people crossed the border, prompting serious questions about the management of the EU’s external borders and the possibility of onward movements into other member states.
Italy responded by introducing checks on passengers arriving from Spain, arguing that the situation created risks for public order and internal security. Rome also raised concerns about the possible movement of individuals presenting security threats, although the extent of any such movement remained disputed.
Madrid rejected the justification and introduced reciprocal measures. What began as an emergency response to events on an external border consequently developed into a disagreement about whether one Schengen member could impose restrictions on another on the basis of anticipated migration movements.
EU Today examined the original Spanish retaliation in August, when the dispute first threatened to turn temporary border controls into an instrument of political pressure.
The wider consequences of the Ceuta incident have raised questions about the vulnerabilities exposed at the EU’s external border and the effectiveness of common European migration and crisis-response policy.
The limits of temporary border controls
Schengen is built on the principle that people can travel between participating countries without routine internal border checks. Member states nevertheless retain the right to reintroduce temporary controls in response to serious threats to public policy or internal security, subject to the requirements of EU law.
The difficulty lies in determining when those exceptional powers are justified. Italy has maintained that the Ceuta crisis warranted precautionary action. Spain has argued that controls imposed specifically on travellers from its territory were unjustified and discriminatory.
These opposing positions matter beyond the two countries. If concerns over irregular arrivals in one member state become sufficient grounds for another to introduce sustained checks, the distinction between Europe’s external borders and its internal travel area becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.
The operational results have also entered the political argument. Italian figures cited during the dispute indicate that nearly half a million passengers were checked during the first month, with 31 refused entry. Those numbers demonstrate that the measures were substantial, but do not by themselves establish whether the original security concerns were proportionate to the restrictions imposed.
Madrid, meanwhile, has maintained that migrants involved in the Ceuta influx had not moved onwards to mainland Spain in the manner suggested by Italian concerns.
Meloni and Sánchez seek a practical compromise
The latest discussions offer both governments a route towards de-escalation without formally conceding their underlying positions. Meloni can present the additional week of controls as a continuation of Italy’s security precautions, while Sánchez can point to an agreement to prepare their coordinated removal.
The two prime ministers remain politically divided on migration. Meloni has consistently argued for stronger border enforcement and deterrence, while Sánchez has defended an approach incorporating legalisation and labour-market integration for migrants already living in Spain.
Those disagreements were also visible during the Brussels summit, where European leaders returned to the question of migration management and the consequences of national decisions for the wider Union.
For Brussels, the immediate concern is whether the two governments can replace competing national restrictions with arrangements that address security concerns without unnecessarily interrupting movement between Schengen countries.
A coordinated end to the controls would not resolve the underlying problems exposed by Ceuta. It would, however, remove one of the more unusual internal consequences of that crisis and demonstrate that political negotiations can still prevent emergency border measures from becoming semi-permanent.
The decisive period is now the coming week. Whether the controls expire as planned will depend on the discussions between the Italian and Spanish interior ministries and their ability to agree practical alternatives.
Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen attacked Spanish leader Pedro Sánchez on migration during a summit debate in Brussels on Friday (16 October).
Frederiksen, who despite leading a centre-left party has taken an increasingly hard line on migration, criticised Sánchez for granting renewable one-year legal residence permits to undocumented migrants.
“I have asked the commission to look into whether one country is doing almost everything in the opposite direction of what the others are doing. In other words, you come to a country illegally, and suddenly you’re allowed to be there legally,” Frederiksen said before arriving at the second day of the Brussels summit.
In response, Sánchez told reporters after the meeting with EU leaders that Spain’s regularisation scheme “does not go against the grain” – since there are many countries with similar measures.
In April, Spain approved plans to grant legal status to around 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. These so-called regularisations are a common labour-migration policy that other countries have also used, including Italy, which has authorised nearly 500,000 non-EU work visas through 2028.
But at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels in June, several European leaders used the meeting to criticise Spain’s regularisation.
The criticism resurfaced during this October summit, after the summer’s migrant crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, which some EU governments then weaponised against Spain.
Push for stronger wording
Following a breakfast on Friday (16 October), attended by 16 EU countries backing stricter migration restrictions, Denmark, Poland and Italy had also attempted to link migration to crime in draft EU summit conclusions.
They tried to amend the summit conclusions to call on the commission for extra efforts to monitor national migration measures that can affect other member states, highlight the impact of migration on welfare and public services, as well as avoid “measures that could create incentives for illegal migration”.
However, France and Luxembourg criticised the position of the 16, and leaders had a strategic exchange and agreed to return to the topic at a later date.
According to experts from the Migration Policy Centre, it is hard to conclude whether Spain’s regularisation plans encouraged more migration to the EU.
So-called ‘pull factors’ are difficult to consider in isolation, as migration depends on work opportunities, social networks abroad and other factors, but policies can also play a role.
Regularisation could pave the way to legal work, generating “positive employment and fiscal outcomes over time,” the scholars also said.
Denmark itself is not bound by EU laws (due to an opt-out) on border control, immigration, civil and criminal law, or police cooperation, and therefore cannot vote on them in the Council.
Rhetoric versus facts
It is not the first clash between the two socialist leaders on migration, but the timing matters.
Sánchez faces elections in November, and France heads into presidential elections next spring, where it is feared anti-migrant rhetoric could roll out the red carpet for the far right.
In response to a barrage of criticism from the likes of Austria, Czech Republic and, Sánchez said that the numbers on illegal migration returns speak for themselves.
“See what is happening in Spain – some politicians are willing to replace the population only so they can be … in government,” said Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš ahead of the meeting on Friday. “I am convinced that for some countries, it is too late – and that some day we will have to defend our borders so that migrants don’t come to us from Western countries if it continues like this. And we, of course, are preparing for this.”
“It’s a road to hell,” added Babiš, who belongs to the far-right Patriots for Europe group.
His comments, Sánchez said, resembled the rhetoric of the far-right political party Vox in Spain, now polling close to 20 percent. “One thing is the rhetoric, the blablabla, and another thing is the facts,” he said.
Ceuta crisis
The situation in Ceuta escalated at the end of July 2026, when tens of thousands of people simultaneously attempted to cross over from Morocco to the autonomous enclave.
The Spanish have since deployed additional security measures to regain control over the territory.
A majority of newly arrived migrants were eventually returned to Morocco, but thousands remained in the city of 80,000 people – many of whom are unaccompanied children and teenagers.
The crisis has exposed tensions between Spain, Morocco and the EU on border control and asylum and put into question who is responsible for migrants.
French president Emmanuel Macro previously said: “Spain was the target of an attack. Call it a hybrid attack if you like, but it was an information attack. Traffickers, and probably people seeking to destabilise Spain, led many people living in poverty to believe there was an opportunity, using false information and creating an information bubble.”
Meanwhile Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni previously called for a suspension of the Schengen free movement agreement with Spain.
The whole situation triggered tit-for-tat border closures between Spain and Italy.
On Thursday (15 October), Italy decided not to renew the security checks with Spain, paving the way for a week of negotiations between Madrid and Rome to reach a final agreement.
Spanish arms manufacturer General Dynamics European Land Systems-Santa Barbara Sistemas (GDELS-SBS) is supplying Latvia with infantry fighting vehicles fitted with Israeli-made turrets, despite Madrid’s arms embargo on Israel, Globes reported on 15 October.
The deliveries cast doubt on the reach of Spain’s 2025 arms embargo on Israel, imposed in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which bans the import and export of military equipment, products, and technology to and from Israel.
Yet the ban has not stopped Israeli weapons systems from being mounted on Spanish-made combat vehicles for sale to third countries.
Latvia has ordered 84 Mednieks combat vehicles, each mounted with a UT30 MK2 unmanned turret built by lead Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, under a contract worth roughly $929 million, with deliveries set to continue until 2029.
Latvian Defense Minister Raivis Melnis hailed the first delivery as a step toward strengthening the country’s defense and its cooperation with NATO partners, as members scramble to meet the US’s demand for greater contribution to the alliance.
Elbit had already secured a deal worth around $100 million in April 2025 to supply GDELS-SBS with the unmanned turrets, months before Madrid declared its embargo, with the Israeli firm stating that the systems were bound for an unnamed European NATO member.
SBS was state-owned until the early 2000s, when it was privatized and sold to US arms giant General Dynamics.
According to Globes, General Dynamics’ presence in Europe greatly helps Israel push its weapons, military components, and technology into the continent, owing to the close ties between the US and Israel.
In early 2026, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government came under fire for weighing the purchase of military systems from a company partly owned by Israeli arms giant Rafael, even as it pledged to achieve “zero technological dependence” on Israel.
The arrangement illustrates how Israeli arms firms continue to embed components in European weapons programs through multinational manufacturers, even where governments have restricted direct trade with Israel.
Elbit has benefited from surging demand linked to Israel’s war on Gaza and wider regional conflict, reporting a record $32 billion order backlog as of 30 June 2026.
Europe drove most of the backlog growth in the second quarter of 2026, the company said, with roughly 73 percent of its orders now coming from buyers outside Israel.
Europe is heading into an electoral moment without recent precedent. Four of its five most populous member states, Spain, France, Italy and Poland, are due to vote within the next 12 months – starting with Spain on 29 November.
If voters move further right, the combined effect could reshape the Union far more profoundly than any single national election.
Two shifts stand out. First, the firewall between the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the hard-right is crumbling, even in Germany, its last bastion.
Hard-right parties sit in the governments of Italy, Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia and Croatia, while Slovenia’s government relies on outside support from one.
Second, competition from the far-right is pushing established radical-right parties to harden their positions.
In Catalonia, Aliança Catalana is challenging Vox; in France, Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête, despite scoring single digits, is pressing on Marine Le Pen’s National Rally; in Italy, Roberto Vannacci’s National Future is challenging Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy; and in Poland, Grzegorz Braun’s Confederation of the Polish Crown is cannibalising the Confederation.
Under pressure, established conservatives tend to move towards these parties rather than hold the line, as Spain’s Partido Popular and France’s Les Républicains illustrate. Positions once on the margins become mainstream.
The implications go beyond immigration.
Le Pen and Vox leader Santiago Abascal advocate “national priority” in access to welfare and public services. Under pressure from the League and National Future, Meloni’s government has introduced a 30-percent cap on first-year classrooms for pupils without Italian citizenship, based on their birthplace or prior schooling.
A leaked AfD strategy paper reportedly goes further, proposing that national constitutions override EU law and reducing the Court of Justice to a forum for disputes between governments.
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EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.
Find the full transcript below:
Do you remember the Yellow Vests movement that shook France 2018? On TikTok, a young user has called for a national mobilisation on the seventeenth of October against the cost of living, and the video quickly went viral. So could the Yellow Vests make their big return?
“Please, give us a date, we’re ready to protest! We young people are struggling. We just can’t make a living anymore,” that’s what Justine, a TikToker from Normandy in France has posted a few weeks ago, while wearing a fluorescent yellow vest.
The reference to the 2018 Yellow Vests is unmistakable. The French movement, which began in protest at rising fuel prices, has been widely revived on social media in recent weeks, especially by younger users.
Our colleague Romane Lizée from StreetPress, a fellow member of the Sphera Network alongside Europod, spoke to some of them: young people reviving a protest movement they only knew from a distance.
Yves, a 24-year-old TikToker with over 80,000 followers, made a video called “Survival Guide for the Yellow Vests 2026”. He gives would-be protesters practical advice, such as bringing thick ski goggles or writing a lawyer’s phone number on a piece of paper.
So why is the movement resurfacing now? For many, the movement has come to stand for a general sense of being fed up, something they still feel today.
“Eight years ago, France put on the yellow vest because petrol hit 1.50 euros a litre, and now we’re almost at three euros and nothing is happening!” That’s how Saïd, a 23-year-old delivery driver, sees it.
The economic context is indeed worse than it was eight years ago. The price of fuel is now almost 2.40 euros a litre.
Throughout September, a series of protests followed one another, called by different professions and for different reasons: climate action, firefighters, a public-sector strike, the law on sexual violence, and finally the student blockades.
High school students have been protesting for a few weeks now, blockading their schools to demand better conditions. We talked about this in a previous Briefed episode. You can find the link in the description.
Now, will the protest be as big and long-lasting as the one in 2018?
Online, a petition launched by the website 17octobregiletjaune, which calls for the protest, has gathered more than 21,000 signatures. Over a thousand actions across the country have been identified on a map by the same website: mostly protests in several cities, but also actions on roundabouts and at petrol stations.
Youth organisations, students’ unions and education staff have already answered the call. More importantly, the CGT, one of France’s main labour unions, has backed it, as have some political figures, like Marine Tondelier, the Green candidate for the presidential election. Still, the true extent of the movement is difficult to predict.
In other European countries, protests are also multiplying, especially among young people. In Spain, huge demonstrations for the right to housing have been taking place in several cities since mid-September. They went quite far: they pushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call snap elections.
In Brussels, on October 9th, thousands of protesters, including rail workers, teachers, and university and secondary school students, marched against the federal government’s policies, in particular its socio-economic measures. Here again, precarity is a central grievance.
In Italy, on October 8th, students called for mobilisation, notably by camping in front of universities across the country to protest against the sharp rise in tuition fees and student rents.
The triggers behind these protests are not all the same, and the mobilisations take different forms from country to country. But the goal is broadly the same: to call for better living conditions and to defend basic social rights. And young people are particularly mobilised.
The public education system in Madrid – teachers and students alike – launched an indefinite strike on Wednesday, October 14. Tens of thousands emptied classrooms and took to the streets, demanding an end to the regional government’s education policy – warning that it promotes privatization.
Episodes of police violence were reported near part of the education sites.
A joint union front, including sectoral branches of the General Union of Workers (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT), the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO), and the General Confederation of Labor (Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT), among others, started building the mobilization months ago.
While preparing the strike, they tabled demands including wage increases, investment into education infrastructure, and smaller class sizes.
A strike to defend quality public education
“Madrid’s teachers have said ‘enough is enough’ in the face of regional policies that seek to dismantle public services in favor of private management, demonstrating a profound contempt for the inclusive school, one that equalizes, protects, and guarantees real opportunity for the future of children and the working class,” the union front stated.
“This strike is not just for teachers,” UGT Public Services Madrid emphasized in a statement. “We are defending quality public education for students and their families, who are the ones who suffer the consequences of overcrowded classrooms and staff shortages.”
Students on the first day of the strike. Source: Sindicato de Estudiantes
Union demands were endorsed by students, including the student union Sindicato de Estudiantes. “Ceilings are crumbling, there is no air conditioning, facilities are outdated, and students are forced to learn in makeshift and portable classrooms or overcrowded spaces,” the organization stated.
Student union recognizes strike’s “decisive moment”
Students and teachers insist on the responsibility borne for the crisis by the regional People’s Party government led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Ayuso was also an often-quoted name in recent housing mobilizations in Madrid, where demonstrators linked the right-wing party’s policies with the ongoing housing crisis – including the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal.
The education strike, Sindicato de Estudiantes wrote, is a “way to involve the entire working class and youth against a reactionary government that not only does business with public education, but is selling our neighborhoods to vulture funds and rentier landlords who speculate on housing, one that steals money from public health to hand it to companies and the corrupt …”
In their communications, student associations echoed the historic school strikes taking place in France. “Also very present in the minds of Madrid students, as in the entire State, are the events shaking France and Belgium: the enormous student strikes of our colleagues that have filled Paris and dozens of cities, and the brutal police repression that they have had to endure,” they wrote. “We know that we are in a decisive moment, and like them, we will fulfill our task.”
Strong adherence to the education strike gives hope for an even stronger mobilization on November 11, when Spain’s labor movement has called for a general strike to increase wages, fight against the cost of living crisis, and overhaul the country’s housing policy.
When European Union leaders meet in Brussels later on Thursday (15 October), migration will be high on the agenda. Amid political panic — real and manufactured — over the events in Ceuta this summer, the European Commission has come out with a five-point plan promising more border surveillance and policing, more dodgy deals with countries outside the EU, and more deportations.
It also includes an ominous plan to devise a new “emergency response instrument” that could allow for the total suspension of access to asylum, which is likely to result in summary mass deportations, in situations when third countries are blamed for ‘instrumentalising’ migration movements.
That the idea is even on the table is a measure of how far the EU’s approach to migration has degenerated.
There is a jarring disconnect between commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s insistence on European values and the rules-based order and the willingness to throw the right to asylum out the window.
It is a short-sighted and dangerous hypocrisy that will harm women, men, and children at EU borders and potentially beyond if it encourages other states to adopt a similar approach.
If a 20-year-old man I interviewed in Ceuta in August were at the summit in Brussels, he might help guide the debate back to the realities of why people flee and seek safety, their needs and aspirations and hopefully toward a policy informed by shared humanity.
A Ceuta story
He told me he escaped from his village in Somalia in November 2024 when the Islamist armed group Al-Shabab attacked it. He went to Libya and spent six months detained in a smuggler’s warehouse in Kufra, where he said he witnessed many deaths from nightly beatings. He escaped, reached Morocco, and after months of hardship there saw his chance to seek safety on 31 July, when he swam to Ceuta.
It may well be that instrumentalisation played a role, among many other factors, in the arrival of more than 72,000 people there during two days at the end of July.
For many, the decision to cross may have been opportunistic and fuelled by disinformation on social media. Yet that cannot justify violence, summary returns, degrading treatment, or denying access to asylum procedures, in Ceuta or elsewhere.
Among the thousands who have remained in Ceuta are asylum seekers from strife-torn Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Chad, and elsewhere.
Suspending asylum completely would not only thwart their chances to find protection. It would rupture the EU’s commitment to the rules-based international order in a profound way.
Rupture of rights
The right to seek asylum is embedded in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the related prohibition of refoulement — sending someone to a place where they face serious harm — is a red line through international human rights and refugee law.
The focus on deterrence and externalisation over the past decade – coinciding with the growing influence of the far-right in European politics – has arguably made this previously unthinkable option part of the conversation.
Both Greece (temporarily in 2020 and 2025) and Poland (continuously at its border with Belarus since March 2025) have suspended asylum without significant reaction from the commission or other member states.
The Crisis Regulation, part of the pact, already allows a member state to depart from normal border procedures and curtail important safeguards in a situation of mass arrivals and/or when a third country or hostile non-state actor instrumentalises migration. While the regulation causes concern about potential misuse and unjustified restrictions on access to asylum, it does not allow for wholesale suspension of the right.
A difficult situation was compounded by recriminations against Spain from other EU countries, exploitation by far-right groups, and neglect and hostility that led to people living on the streets, in the forests, and in makeshift huts on the beach in an apparent effort to compel them to go back to Morocco. It took Spain weeks to begin housing and registering people.
Spain did not invoke the Crisis regulation. Rather than adding new measures, policymakers should be wrestling with why it didn’t use supposedly tailor-made EU legislation and addressing how mismanagement and a finger-pointing lack of cooperation among EU states create an endless loop of crises that feed xenophobia.
EU leaders should keep sight of the people affected and basic principles at stake. They should reject approaches to migration that so clearly violate fundamental rights and normalise cruelty.
As EU leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (15-16 October) to discuss, among other things, the issue of Europe’s southern border, countless Moroccan families cling to the hope they may see their children again after they entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa in July.
“Ayoub left on 30 July at 2PM. Since that day, I haven’t heard anything from him, apart from the fact that he went to Ceuta,” his brother said.
Ayoub Elkhamlichi was 27 when he left the north of Morocco for the nearby border with Ceuta, a half-hour drive from his home.
In the commotion that accompanied the rush of an estimated 72,000 mostly Moroccans into the enclave over 30 and 31 July 2026, 141 people were reported to have lost their lives while attempting the crossing.
Those that have not been heard of since that deadly July remain innumerable.
Among them is Ayoub, who had been working in a local konafa shop before leaving.
His brother Mohamed Ali laments that he’d forgotten his ID card, which will reduce the chances he’ll be identified if he’s ever found.
“The border with Ceuta was opened, so everyone left Morocco, because the city of Tetouan offers few job opportunities,” Mohamed Ali told EUobserver, from his home in one of Morocco’s closest cities to the Spanish border.
“Ayoub managed to find a job, but the pay was low. So he went to Ceuta,” he said. His family, meanwhile, “are in a state of anxiety and fear.”
It has been 11 weeks since Khaled’s dad Said has also seen his son, 26, who left for Ceuta from Tidass, a small Moroccan town, which Said said “has its problems.”
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