MR president Georges-Louis Bouchez has called for Spain to be partially suspended from the Schengen area after this week’s migration crisis between Morocco and Spain.
In a message posted on X on Sunday, the leader of Belgium’s liberal party said he wanted targeted checks on people arriving from Spain, along with a partial suspension of Spain from Schengen rules on the free movement of people.
This week, about 60,000 migrants from Morocco entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta illegally, according to the article. More than 70 people died, most of them while trying to swim to the territory.
Spanish authorities said on Saturday that most of the migrants had been returned to Morocco.
The sudden influx triggered a major crisis within the European Union, with Italy announcing a temporary suspension of its free movement arrangements with Spain.
Spain later joined a group of 22 countries, including Belgium, Italy and Denmark, in calling for a meeting to discuss the situation in the Spanish enclave and the diplomatic tensions that followed. EU interior ministers are due to meet by videoconference on Tuesday.
Bouchez said the sudden wave of migrants in southern Europe was not accidental, and accused Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist government of bearing “enormous responsibility”.
He argued that Spain’s large-scale regularisation policy created a “pull factor”. Bouchez also said Sánchez was putting Europe at risk, claiming illegal immigration had become an easy source of cheap labour for serious organised crime, including drug trafficking.
At the same time, he claimed he supported “targeted and selected migration” while continuing to uphold “our humanitarian duty”.
