Spain’s central government and regional governments approved €25 million in emergency funds on Thursday to improve care for unaccompanied migrant minors in Ceuta.
The vote, which was the only item on the agenda of a Sectoral Conference on Children and Adolescents convened by Spain’s Ministry of Youth and Children, was unanimous among the regions that participated.
Three regions governed by the Popular Party in coalition with the far-right Vox party - Aragón, Extremadura and Castile and León - did not even participate, having already informed the ministry in writing of their opposition to the additional funding ahead of the meeting.
The number of children at the center of the standoff has continued to rise since the crisis began. Ceuta initially reported around 1,342 unaccompanied minors registered in early August. That number grew to 1,898 registered with the National Police several weeks later, according to Spain’s interior minister.
Meanwhile, the country’s youth minister, Sira Rego, told reporters that the number continues to climb because of what she described as “a constant trickle” of children being identified.
The minors arrived among the approximately 70,000 to 80,000 people who entered the Spanish-administered city from Morocco on July 30 and 31, overwhelming a child-protection system that Ceuta’s own officials have said was designed to accommodate far fewer.
It should be remembered that Thursday’s funding vote, although unanimous, did not resolve the more controversial issue of where the children will be housed.
The Community of Madrid sent its Minister of Family, Youth and Social Affairs, Ana Dávila, who attended the meeting and voted in favor of the funding, but rejected “any type of distribution” of the minors.
Rego responded directly, saying the ministry would not accept “the deportation of minors” and would instead rely on the legal mechanisms already in place.
The political heat around the issue has been building for weeks, not just around Thursday’s meeting.
At an earlier sectoral conference, Rego is reported to have accused the Popular Party of aligning itself with Vox’s “racist positions” on the minors, a description that Balearic Islands minister Sandra Fernández referred to this week when criticizing what she described as Rego’s “tone” toward the regions.
Fernández added that this had contributed to the minutes of that earlier meeting still not being formally approved because they did not include Rego’s comments.
PP Secretary General Miguel Tellado, by contrast, has described the situation as “a national security crisis” rather than a migration crisis, saying it is the central government’s responsibility to ensure that migrants “return through where they entered.”
Criticism has not only come from the regions opposed to the funding, which was approved by parliament on Thursday, but also from some of those that voted in favor.
The Balearic Islands backed the €25 million sum but said it was “insufficient” given what regional authorities described as an exceptional situation.
They also said the islands’ reception network was already operating at more than double its intended capacity, with several hundred minors staying on the islands while only a few hundred places were available.
The tension between regions willing to help finance Ceuta’s response to the influx but unwilling or unable to take in the children themselves has left the question of redistribution effectively unresolved, even as the funding moves forward.
Thursday’s €25 million is in addition to a smaller €5.5 million sum already approved at a previous sectoral conference in July.
Rego said the ministry had already begun the administrative process to release the funds on July 31, the day after the mass crossing began.
The money will come from Spain’s Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Youth and Children, which will then transfer it to Ceuta through existing channels rather than having to create a distribution framework from scratch.
For Ceuta itself, caught between a funding decision it welcomed and a distribution debate over which it has little control, little has changed on the ground in the weeks since the crisis erupted.
City officials have continued to demand both more resources and an accelerated process for identifying and processing the minors.
Meanwhile, Morocco has separately pressed Spain to speed up the return of Moroccan minors in particular, a request Moroccan officials have raised through diplomatic channels on several occasions.
Madrid’s regions, however, remain divided over the fate of the children who, for now, remain in Ceuta.
