The recent massive influx of migrants in Ceuta at the end of July has once again brought to the table the unique fit of this autonomous city and Melilla within the European Union. This situation has led the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to announce a series of initiatives to reaffirm that both territories, despite being located in North Africa, are fully part of the European space.
Before the Plenary of the Congress of Deputies, Sánchez detailed this Thursday that the Executive will promote their incorporation into the Customs Union and will work for them to be recognized as outermost regions (RUP). In addition, they will be offered a "permanent seat" in the Committee of the Regions (CdR), a community advisory body without decision-making power.
Of the three measures, the simplest to carry out is precisely the one related to the CdR, since it is the Government itself that determines the composition of the Spanish delegation, made up of 21 members. Currently, it consists of representatives from the 17 autonomous communities and four others designated by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP).
The next step for the Executive would be to formally submit its proposal to the Council of the EU, which groups national governments and which, according to usual practice, usually limits itself to endorsing it. The Committee of the Regions does not participate in this procedure. From this institution, they explain to Europa Press that when changes occur in the delegation, for example after regional elections, the process usually extends for about two months.
The other two initiatives announced by Sánchez are much more complicated, especially because neither the timeline nor the legal formula to be used has been specified. The Government has not clarified these points, so the procedures could extend for months and even overlap with the upcoming general elections, which still do not have a fixed date.
In his speech, the president acknowledged that when Spain joined the then European Economic Community in 1986 there was a "lack of ambition" and that for this reason Ceuta and Melilla were left out of the Customs Union. As he explained, this decision was made "partly to preserve the special tax regime of these territories" and facilitate accession, but also "to avoid diplomatic friction," thus admitting that there was a desire not to strain the relationship with Morocco, which considers both cities to be occupied territories.
The way to enter the Customs Union
The inclusion of Ceuta and Melilla in the Customs Union requires a formal request from the Spanish Government to the community institutions, a step that has not yet been taken, as confirmed to Europa Press by a spokesperson for the European Commission, who avoids commenting until they have the details of the initiative.
Once the request is registered, the European Commission will be responsible for examining it in the first instance. From there, "it will be up to the Council, unanimously based on the proposal of the Commission and after consulting the Eurochamber, to decide whether to include Ceuta and Melilla," the spokesperson specified.
Consequently, the Spanish Executive needs the unwavering support of all member States for this proposal to succeed. For now, the Government has not achieved that unanimity on another front: the modification of the EU linguistic regulation to incorporate Catalan, Basque, and Galician as official languages, a negotiation that remains stalled two years after its proposal.
The challenge of being outermost regions
Even more convoluted is the objective of having Ceuta and Melilla considered outermost regions. The main obstacle lies in the very definition of these regions, characterized by their insularity, geographical remoteness, and small size. The two autonomous cities meet the criterion of reduced area, but not the other two, as they are located just a few dozen kilometers from the peninsula and are not islands.
Currently, they hold the status of outermost regions, in addition to the Canary Islands, five French overseas departments (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Réunion); one French overseas collectivity (Saint Martin) and two Portuguese autonomous regions (Azores and Madeira).
The Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) provides for a simplified mechanism to grant the status of outermost region, but limited to overseas territories. In these cases, it is enough for the member State to request the Council to modify the status of the affected region.
This happened with Mayotte, which was recognized as an outermost region following a decision of the European Council on July 11, 2012, following the request submitted by France in October 2011. The change took effect on January 1, 2014.
However, Ceuta and Melilla do not have the status of overseas territories. In fact, Article 355 of the TFEU establishes that the status of "any of the Danish, French, or Dutch overseas countries or territories" can only be reviewed, a decision that the Council must adopt unanimously, after consulting the Commission.
A reform of the Treaties as the only way out
In this context, as pointed out in a detailed report from 2022 by then MEP Jordi Cañas, "the possible incorporation of Ceuta and Melilla as outermost regions in Article 349 must be carried out through the reform of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union."
According to Cañas' analysis in "Ceuta and Melilla. + Spain + Europe," consulted by Europa Press, the only way for both cities to appear in the article that lists the outermost regions is to resort to the ordinary procedure for reviewing the Treaties.
In practice, this would require the Spanish Government to present a proposal for the revision of the TFEU to the EU Council, which would send it to the European Council and communicate it to the national parliaments of the Twenty-Seven. Furthermore, the Council would have to consult the European Parliament and the Commission, and approve by simple majority a decision favorable to studying the proposed modifications.
Subsequently, the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, would be called to convene a Convention made up of representatives from the national parliaments, heads of state or government, the European Parliament, and the Commission. Its mission would be to examine the proposal and adopt a recommendation by consensus.
That recommendation would then go to a Conference of representatives of the governments of the member states which, convened by the President of the Council, would have to agree unanimously on the specific modification to be introduced in the TFEU.
The process would not end there. The reform, in this case the eventual inclusion of Ceuta and Melilla as outermost regions, would have to be ratified by all member states according to their constitutional procedures.
As a reference, the negotiation and ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty, the last major reform of the EU, lasted almost two and a half years. Although the negotiations lasted six months and the text was signed in December 2007, its ratification did not conclude until November 2009.
Furthermore, the Ciudadanos MEP warned that it would not be enough to add Ceuta and Melilla to the list of outermost regions, but it would be necessary to review some of the features that today define these regions.
"Therefore, the process of acquiring the RUP status by Ceuta and Melilla will not only require a formal modification of the regulation, but also a new approach or definition of such a category," Cañas emphasized, warning that this rethinking could open a new political and legal debate among the Twenty-Seven.