Spanish migration debate fuelled after PM trip to West Africa

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tells West Africa that Spain needs seasonal migrants but warns of security threats stemming from people smugglers

Spanish search and rescue team escorts a 'cayuco' boat with 174 migrants onboard disembarking at La Restinga port on the Canary Island of El Hierro on August 31. AFP

A fierce migration debate has taken off in Spain following backlash to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's trip to West Africa earlier this week.

Mr Sanchez was accused by political opponents on the right and then far-left of sending the wrong message, as he sought to curb the record number of migrants arriving in illegal boat crossings to Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa.

The seven-island archipelago in the Atlantic recorded 22,000 migrants so far this year, compared to 10,000 in 2023. This puts the Canary Islands on track to receive record numbers of new migrants, which far exceed the 39,910 migrants in 2023.

Those numbers are expected to rise as Atlantic waters become calmer in the coming weeks.

Mr Sanchez initially told leaders that Spain needed migrants to fill labour shortages in agriculture - but was forced to change tone after backlash from political opponents.

"Spain is committed to safe, orderly and regular migration," the Socialist premier said soon after he arrived on Tuesday in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, in the first stop of his tour, which also included Gambia and Senegal.

He called for "circular migration" schemes that allow people to enter Spain legally to work for a limited time in sectors like agriculture, which face labour shortages during harvest time, before returning home.

"Immigration is not a problem, it is a necessity that comes with certain problems," Mr Sanchez said.

His comments were immediately blasted by Spain's main opposition Popular Party, which said the statements would encourage more migrants to try to enter the country illegally at a time when the Canary Islands is struggling to cope with an influx of migrants.

Nearly every day, Spain's coastguard rescues a boat carrying dozens of African migrants towards the seven-island archipelago located off the north-west coast of Africa.

"It is irresponsible to encourage a pull effect in the worst irregular migration crisis," PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo said, accusing Mr Sanchez of going to Africa to "promote Spain as a destination" for migrants.

This is "the opposite" of what other nations in the European Union are doing, he added.

The PP has toughened its position on the immigration in recent years, in response to the rise of the far-right Vox party.

Mr Sanchez appeared to change tack in the final leg of his tour in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. He highlighted Spain’s security concerns that trafficking rings organising boat crossings could have links to terrorist networks or drug smuggling gangs.

He said security was a "top priority" and said it is "essential to return those who have come to Spain illegally".

Deportations, however, require the agreement of the country of origin of a migrant, which is not easy to get.

Cristina Monge, a political scientist at the University of Zaragoza, said Mr Sanchez had tried to strike a balance in his comments on the issue in Africa but his message was "a bit contradictory".

His first speech in Mauritania came "from a European, human rights perspective" but when he talked about the need for deportations, the support "he gains on the right, he loses on the left," she told AFP.

While the PP welcomed Mr Sanchez's sudden emphasis on security, hard-left party Sumar – the junior coalition partners in his minority government – immediately opposed it.

"Following the same migration recipes called for by the right is a failure and a mistake," Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz, who founded Sumar, wrote on X.

The Spanish government estimates there are some 200,000 people in Mauritania waiting to go to the Canaries. The bulk of them are from Mali where a military regime is battling an Islamist insurgency.