Spanish Enclaves Ceuta and Melilla Consider EU Customs Union Amid Border Tensions

"I say yes to the customs union, but without touching the special economic and fiscal regime that Ceuta and Melilla benefit from, which should be compensated by a special status," said the president of Melilla, Eduardo de Castro, to El Periódico de España. It is up to the central government to make this request to Brussels, but "so far, the governments have not been proactive, no doubt because of the pressure from Morocco," laments De Castro, specifying that Rabat continues to claim the two autonomous cities and seeing them become "European" would not suit its cause.

The president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, shares the opinion of his counterpart in Melilla, namely to integrate the customs union while "maintaining the essential aspects of the current Special Economic and Fiscal Regime." He raised the idea last June, during the presentation in Brussels, by the Ciudadanos MEP Jordi Cañas, of the report entitled "Ceuta and Melilla: more Spain and more Europe", carried out by the consulting firm Ernst & Young, which had also mentioned this possibility. A working group has been set up in Ceuta to draft a bill on this subject, he indicates.

Spain and Morocco are currently negotiating the reopening of the commercial customs in Melilla, unilaterally closed by Morocco since August 2018, and the opening of a new customs office at the Ceuta border where the kingdom has also put an end to smuggling (atypical trade) with the closure of the borders in March 2020 for health reasons. Pedro Sanchez and Mohammed VI agreed in April, in a joint statement, to work for the free movement of people and goods in Ceuta and Melilla.

One of the four border posts in Melilla, Beni Ensar, was reopened in May. The reopening of the other three is still awaited. But Morocco "in no way wants Ceuta and Melilla to become commercial hubs that could compete" with the port of Tanger Med, analyzes Professor Miguel Ángel Brush, adding that Morocco will try to limit the entry of products into the two cities. For its part, the Spanish government has just allocated 1.5 million euros (out of 711 million) to the construction of a commercial customs office and a one-stop shop at the Tarajal border post in Ceuta.