After the Spanish Government pointed out "evidence" of the supposed involvement of Russia and Israel in disinformation campaigns during the Ceuta crisis, the European Commission avoids publicly supporting the thesis that these operations were behind the massive influx of migrants into the autonomous city. Brussels acknowledges that it detected activity linked to Russian disinformation during the crisis, but establishes a substantial difference: there is no conclusive evidence that these campaigns triggered the irregular arrival of more than 80,000 people.
"In the case of Ceuta, we saw attempts by Russia to exploit the crisis on the internet. However, we do not have conclusive evidence suggesting that the crisis itself was triggered by disinformation from foreign state actors," points out a senior official of the European Commission.
The nuance is relevant because Brussels places the disinformation activity in a phase after the outbreak of the crisis, and not as the element that would have caused the massive influx of people into Ceuta. In this way, the community institutions acknowledge the existence of influence operations linked to Russia, but do not attribute to the Kremlin the responsibility for the origin of the migration crisis.
Brussels acknowledges disinformation but questions its role as a trigger
In an interview granted to Cadena SER, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, linked the massive arrival of people to Ceuta with a campaign of falsehoods spread through social networks "associated with both Russia and Israel and an ultra-right international".
The statement from the Spanish Executive thus positioned disinformation operations as one of the elements that would have contributed to generating the conditions for the crisis. The Government's own spokesperson, Elma Saiz, later defended that the information handled by the Executive came from "internal reports from Foreign Affairs and the European Commission itself". However, the interpretation now conveyed from Brussels introduces a substantial difference regarding that reading. The Commission does confirm that it detected content related to the Ceuta crisis disseminated from environments linked to Russia, but denies having evidence that allows establishing a causal relationship between those campaigns and the onset of the crisis.
Brussels had already acknowledged in August that, within the usual monitoring carried out by the community institutions on manipulation and information interference operations, certain messages related to Ceuta had been identified. The Commission now avoids publicly commenting on the specific content of the report referenced by Sánchez and which would have been sent to all Member States. The sensitivity of this type of evaluations prevents community institutions from going into details about the sources, the identified actors, or the operational conclusions included in the documents.
The role of Israel, even more limited
The same caution extends to the references made by the Spanish Government to accounts or networks linked to Israel. Brussels does not publicly confirm the participation of agents related to the Israeli state and avoids equating that activity with a coordinated state operation. Community sources place, in this case, the identified messages in specific accounts, without publicly establishing a structure of action that allows attributing the campaign to the State of Israel.
From the European External Action Service (EEAS), they explain that their activity is part of the usual mechanisms for monitoring the information environment. "As a service to our Member States, the EEAS provides periodic assessments of the information environment around crises or political events relevant to the collective interests and political objectives of the EU," they state.
Furthermore, Brussels reminds that information can be shared individually with Member States when their interests are directly affected, which would explain why national governments may have access to more detailed assessments than those that subsequently become public. The episode brings back to the table one of the main challenges of European policy in the face of foreign interference operations: differentiating between the existence of disinformation campaigns and their real capacity to provoke or trigger a crisis.
In the case of Ceuta, the position conveyed by Brussels is clear on this point. The EU acknowledges that Russia tried to exploit the crisis informatively, but does not consider it proven that the Kremlin was behind its origin, as suggested by the Spanish Government. The difference between both concepts —exploiting a crisis once it has started or contributing to provoke it— is now the main element of disagreement between the interpretation of Madrid and the caution maintained by the community institutions.