Editor's note: Wu Huiping is the deputy director of the German Studies Center at Tongji University in Shanghai. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

At the end of July, Spain's enclave Ceuta in North Africa was hit by a massive wave of illegal crossings. About 70,000 migrants risked their lives setting out from Morocco, crossing by sea or on foot to reach Ceuta, alongside hundreds of people who reached Melilla. The Spanish government reported that 75 people died during the crossing. 

For more than a decade, migration and refugee issues have plagued Europe, costing the EU and its member states enormous human, material and financial resources. On June 12, the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum formally entered into force. The Ceuta incident constitutes a stress test for the reformed European migration and asylum system, vividly exposing Europe's vulnerability on the migration issue.

Context of the Ceuta migration surge

The immediate trigger for the refugee event appeared to be a ruling given one month ago by Spain's Supreme Court, stating that authorities cannot summarily repatriate migrants who arrive by sea without due process.

Separately, the Spanish government recently introduced a measure offering a possible path to legalization for irregular migrants already in the country, motivated by a desire to address labor shortages.

However, Spain's migration policy has not been significantly loosened. In recent years, the EU is pushing for stricter common asylum policies, and Spain is no exception.

Morocco's government attributed the incident mainly to the spread of false information on social media, the activities of smuggling mafia, and misinterpretations of the Spanish Supreme Court's ruling.

In response, the Spanish government swiftly deployed military forces, naval vessels and police to Ceuta, quickly repatriating the vast majority of the irregular entrants. EU Migration Commissioner also stated that these migrants would not be allowed to proceed further into continental Europe.

Trends and causes of Europe's migration crisis

For more than 10 years, migration and refugee issues have persistently troubled Europe, displaying several distinctive characteristics.

First, the burden on member states is highly uneven. Spain, Italy, and Greece – countries at the frontline, often with island geographies that make them highly vulnerable to irregular arrivals – bear the heaviest pressure.

Second, the refugee crisis has inflicted multiple shocks on European society, gradually evolving from a short-term humanitarian emergency into a medium- and long-term structural malaise.

Third, there is a lack of internal solidarity. Most member states advocate common solutions at the EU level, but some countries still take a hard line on migration and are less cooperative.

The recurrent outbreaks of irregular migration influx in Europe have deep-rooted causes.

Externally, ongoing factors such as the Syrian civil war, the Ukraine war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and poverty and conflicts in Africa continuously generate refugee and irregular migration pressures, making this a persistent global phenomenon.

Internally, European countries are home to advanced economies with relatively high levels of social welfare. Countries such as Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, prior to the refugee crisis, maintained comparatively open, tolerant, and humanitarian stances toward immigrants, thus attracting migrants and asylum seekers to take risky detours to enter Europe.

How migration is reshaping European politics and society

Large-scale irregular migration has introduced more heterogeneous cultural values into Europe, exacerbating divisions within Europe on sensitive issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and injecting what some call systemic public security risks into open European societies.

Terrorism-related incidents and public order problems linked to refugees have occurred repeatedly in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. In a number of countries, immigration policy has become a core public concern and a decisive factor in electoral outcomes.

This trend has fundamentally altered Europe's traditional party landscape and political ecosystem, with the most notable change being a general political rightward shift and conservative turn across Europe.

In national and regional election, right-wing populist and far-right parties have consistently expanded their political influence by leveraging migration and refugee issues.

In this process, mainstream parties have also hardened their stances: not only have center-right parties adopted tougher policies, but even center-left parties, traditionally open and inclusive, have begun to stress the challenges posed by migration.

Consequences and reform of common asylum policy

Following the Ceuta incident, the EU and its member states largely sought to rapidly contain the situation, accelerate repatriation and prevent these irregular migrants from gaining entry into continental Europe. Therefore, this incident is unlikely to escalate into a refugee crisis.

As a matter of fact, the EU has gradually reformed its migration and asylum policies since the 2015 refugee crisis, with most member states significantly tightening their national rules. The EU Migration and Asylum Pact, which took effect on June 12 this year, sends a clear signal that Europe no longer embraces a "welcome culture," instead, it must strengthen deterrence and orderly control.

Nevertheless, the implementation of the European asylum policy will continue to face considerable obstacles.

On the one hand, Europe remains internally divided: the EU hopes to share responsibility more fairly through a refugee relocation mechanism, but some member states are unwilling to cooperate. On the other hand, addressing the root causes in countries of origin is challenging.

Europe urgently needs stronger international cooperation with refugee source and transit countries. However, external partner countries may not always have the capacity or willingness to accept those not granted asylum status.

The surge of tens of thousands of people in just a few days from Morocco toward the Spanish enclaves is thus also a stress test for the EU's newly reformed common asylum system.