About 60,000 people crossed into Ceuta last week. Will Spain and Morocco announce a new migration agreement before Aug 21?

Spain and Morocco did not announce a new, formal bilateral migration agreement before August 21, 2026. Instead, the two countries managed the Ceuta crisis through operational returns coordinated under existing frameworks, including their 1992 readmission treaty, after roughly 70,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave within a 48-hour span in late July and early August. Spanish authorities said more than 69,500 people were returned to Morocco, describing the cooperation as exemplary, while Madrid also installed a floating sea barrier and deployed additional police and military personnel to the enclave. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska emphasized intensified joint enforcement under existing cooperation rather than a newly signed pact, and reporting characterized Spain's response as leaning on its existing multibillion-dollar aid and cooperation arrangement with Rabat rather than a new accord. The crisis became an early test of the European Union's new Pact on Migration and Asylum. Two of the three community votes predicted a new agreement would be announced, but no new formal deal materialized within the window, so the majority community forecast did not match the outcome.