Europe Demands Strict Borders — But Knows None When Exploiting the South

BRÜSSEL / MADRID – Of the up to 60,000 people who crossed the border into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta—a city with a regular population of only 85,000—approximately 48,000 were pushed back to Morocco yesterday. In response to the initial loss of control, the Spanish government deployed the military. The humanitarian catastrophe at the border is a bitter reality: the deaths of 67 people, who drowned in the sea or were trampled to death at the breakwaters on Tarajal beach, have now been internationally confirmed.

Yet, on the platform X, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described it as “good news” that almost all the people had been pushed back to Morocco. Yesterday, on July 31, she stated on X regarding the flight of the people pushing into Ceuta: “Not a single person reached mainland Spain or the rest of the EU.” Coinciding with this military and humanitarian state of emergency, the EU Commission President commented on the situation with an unequivocal demand: “We cannot allow anyone to come into our European Union without adhering to our rules.”

However, behind the call for rules and border protection, a geopolitical conflict is unfolding. Israel’s UN Ambassador recently intervened in the debate, publicly accusing Spain of maintaining “colonial enclaves” in Africa, thus de facto positioning himself on Morocco’s side. In parallel, investigative journalists uncovered articles by right-wing US and Israeli think tanks—such as the Middle East Forum—from the spring of 2026. In them, hardliners explicitly demand helping Morocco “reconquer” Ceuta in order to “punish” NATO partner Spain for its pro-Palestinian policies.

The EU Commission’s demand for unconditional “rule compliance” at the external borders contrasts sharply with the findings of Europe’s highest supervisory bodies and macroeconomic data. An analysis by the Injustice Chronicle of the structural relationships between the EU and the Global South reveals that European institutions systematically violate legal, economic, and human rights standards in central areas.

1. The Findings of Supervisory Bodies: Violations of the EU’s Own Legal Standards

While the EU demands the rule of law externally, official audit reports document that European institutions circumvent their own treaties and international guidelines when implementing border and foreign policy:

• The European Court of Auditors Report: In Special Report 17/2024, the Court of Auditors (ECA) examined the EU Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), worth over 5 billion euros. The auditors found that a disproportionate amount of the funds did not go toward addressing the root causes of migration, but rather into border control measures and equipping repressive security apparatuses. Furthermore, the Commission had failed to implement procedures to record human rights violations in EU-funded projects or to ensure the mandatory “do-no-harm” principle.
• The European Ombudsman’s Reprimand: With the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, which promised over 1 billion euros in financial aid, the EU Commission bypassed the European Parliament. European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly officially reprimanded the Commission because the agreement was concluded without the mandatory formal human rights impact assessment, featuring flawed risk evaluation and a lack of transparency.
• The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ): The agreement initiated by Italy to intern asylum seekers in extraterritorial camps in Albania suffered a major blow before the ECJ on October 4, 2024 (Joined Cases C-758/24 and C-759/24). The court ruled that the blanket designation of third countries as “safe” violates EU law, prompting civil courts in Rome to halt the detentions.

2. Asymmetrical Trade Structures and Resource Extraction

The demand to adhere to rules in international affairs is also undermined by global trade structures.

“While Europe fends off an alleged ‘invasion’ of people, the true invasion has long been taking place in the opposite direction. The US and the EU are systematically plundering the raw materials of the Global South and East.”

• The Prebisch-Singer Mechanisms: The economic structure of many countries of origin is dictated by mechanisms that lead to steadily falling prices for primary goods (raw materials) relative to manufactured goods on the world market. According to a 2024 UNCTAD study, 95 out of 143 developing countries remain highly commodity-dependent, effectively draining them of the capital needed for industrial diversification.
• Unequal Exchange: Economists such as Jason Hickel quantify the Global North’s net appropriation from the South at 12 billion tons of physical raw materials and 188 million person-years of labor annually. For the period from 1990 to 2015, the value of these extracted resources totals $242 trillion, which exceeds global official development assistance payments during the same period by a factor of 30.
• Resource Conflicts: In Sudan, massive quantities of gold are mined irregularly (over 40 tons in 2024 alone) and funneled through illicit networks into the supply chains of Western corporations and Swiss refineries, thereby directly financing armed conflicts and forced displacement. Morocco exports raw phosphates to the global market but must re-import finished fertilizer products worth hundreds of millions of dollars (over $122 million from the EU in 2025 alone) in return, preventing local value creation.

3. The Macroeconomic Effects of Migration

The political narrative that migration primarily represents an economic burden on European social systems does not hold up to macroeconomic scrutiny.

• The Fiscal Multiplier: Research by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) under Marcel Fratzscher demonstrates that additional state spending on refugees has a highly stimulating effect on the domestic economy. Because refugees have a marginal propensity to consume of practically 100 percent, state social benefits flow directly back into the domestic economy—to local landlords, retail stores, and tradespeople. The DIW calculated that these expenditures significantly boosted German economic growth (GDP) in 2015/2016.
• Remittances: According to the World Bank, migrants transfer record sums to their families annually—an estimated $685 billion in 2024. This amount vastly exceeds foreign direct investment and development aid. However, because the recipient countries structurally lack their own final manufacturing industries, a substantial portion of these funds flows back into the consumption of Western imported goods. Labor migration thus indirectly stabilizes the demand for products from Western economies.

4. Necropolitics: Death as an Instrument

The most severe contradiction reveals itself in the handling of human rights. Philosopher Achille Mbembe describes European actions using the concept of “necropolitics”.

Sovereignty today is no longer defined primarily by the protection of a nation’s own citizens, “but fundamentally by the power and capacity to dictate who is able to live and who must die,” Mbembe argues. By closing legal escape routes and outsourcing border control to paramilitary militias in North Africa, the EU consciously delegates violence to third parties. Letting people die in the Mediterranean is not an accident, but a calculated technology of deterrence, experts conclude.

When Ursula von der Leyen postulates that no one may enter the EU without adhering to European rules, she conceals the reality beyond the borders. The EU defends a neocolonial economic model whose foundation relies on blatant rule-breaking and an unprecedented transfer of resources. This geopolitical egoism not only destroys livelihoods in the South but, through internal border controls, increasingly threatens Europe’s greatest achievement: freedom of movement within the Schengen area.

Auf Deutsch: