![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/government-to-chair-eu-meeting-on-ceuta-crisis-as-death-toll-reaches-86.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Irish Government is set to convene a meeting of EU leaders next week to discuss the crossing of 60,000 migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco.<\/p>\n
It is understood social media contributed to the numbers attempting the crossing.<\/p>\n
Officials in Spain say most have been returned, with many of the people leaving voluntarily. However, at least 86 died making the crossing.<\/p>\n
Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said Ireland, as host of the Presidency of the EU Council, will convene a meeting of justice and home affairs ministers from across the bloc.<\/p>\n
Dr Myriam Cherti from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford University is concerned those wanting to cross borders will take dangerous routes.<\/p>\n
Dr Cherti told Newstalk: “The initial crisis is over, but I think the issues still remain around building maritime borders to stop the migrants. But I think unfortunately these things only create new routes where you have more smugglers involved in more dangerous routes for these potential migrants.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Migrants rest outside the CETI short-stay migrant centre in the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta on August 1st, 2026. Photo: Henry Nicholls\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Twenty-two EU member states issued a joint letter calling for coordinated action and the strengthening of the EU’s external borders following the crossings at Ceuta.<\/p>\n
The letter is addressed to EU president Antonio Costa, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, due to Ireland holding the EU Presidency.<\/p>\n
Spain condemned “selfish, polarising and unlawful” reaction to the crisis after Italy suspended the EU’s border-free Schengen arrangement with Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This will set things up for a tense meeting chaired by the Government.<\/p>\n
Spain has taken a pro-migrant stance and recently launched a regularisation scheme which provided a citizenship pathway for one million people.<\/p>\n
The stance from prime minister Pedro Sanchez is in stark contrast to the anti-migrant views of Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish Government is set to convene a meeting of EU leaders next week to discuss the crossing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-580502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}