{"id":7878,"date":"2026-08-07T00:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/?p=7878"},"modified":"2026-08-07T00:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:03:12","slug":"the-panic-in-ceuta-the-collapse-of-european-solidarity-and-other-august-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/the-panic-in-ceuta-the-collapse-of-european-solidarity-and-other-august-surprises\/","title":{"rendered":"The panic in Ceuta, the collapse of European solidarity, and other August surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"

A crisis-prone August<\/strong><\/p>\n

The European Union is officially on holiday in August. The Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU wound down their activities between mid- and late July. The “rentr\u00e9e” is scheduled for Monday, August 31, with an informal meeting of defense ministers in Denmark. Ursula von der Leyen and her team are due back on Friday, September 4, with the Commission’s traditional seminar, which precedes the president’s State of the Union address in mid-September. But, as every summer, August has surprises and crises in store. The one that broke out in Ceuta in late July, with the sudden arrival of more than 50,000 Moroccans in Spain’s African exclave, is just one example. Ambassadors were recalled to Brussels for an emergency meeting, and interior ministers are preparing to meet by videoconference.<\/p>\n

Border checks and Schengen<\/strong><\/p>\n

The issue is divisive: eleven years after the Syrian refugee crisis \u2014 which also broke out in the middle of summer \u2014 migration is once again exposing the fault line within the EU. The Ceuta crisis was never really a migration crisis: Pedro S\u00e1nchez’s government managed to quickly repatriate the would-be migrants who arrived there. But instead of showing solidarity and support for Spain, Ursula von der Leyen and several leaders used Ceuta as a pretext to criticize S\u00e1nchez. Italy reintroduced checks at its Schengen borders. Twenty-two heads of government \u2014 led by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen \u2014 wrote a letter to EU institutions using Ceuta as a pretext to denounce Spain’s regularization of a million migrants.<\/p>\n

Different kinds of unpredictability<\/strong><\/p>\n

August could bring other surprises. Russia and Donald Trump remain the leading candidates for triggering a crisis that could ruin the EU’s holidays. Several Western intelligence services have raised the alarm over a possible, even if limited, Russian kinetic attack against the Baltic states and Poland \u2014 a way of testing NATO’s resolve to defend all its allies. In late July, a Russian missile violated Polish airspace, landing 90 kilometers from the border. Ukraine \u2014 short on interceptors for its air defenses \u2014 remains a constant source of concern, but now also of division. The latest sanctions package, the twenty-first, was only adopted after a group of member states \u2014 Greece, Italy, France, Portugal, Germany \u2014 watered down the measures to protect their national economic interests. As for Trump, the war in Iran could once again destabilize oil markets and possibly spill over into financial markets. Trump is unpredictable by nature, and a new round of tariffs can’t be ruled out \u2014 the American president has threatened trade retaliation after the Commission hit Google with a fine of nearly a billion euros.<\/p>\n

A decisive “Gymnich” for Kallas<\/strong><\/p>\n

In EU jargon, “Gymnich” refers to the informal meeting of foreign ministers held every six months. The name comes from Gymnich Castle in Germany, where the first summit of foreign ministers from what was then the European Economic Community was held in 1974. On September 1, foreign ministers will gather in Denmark. Defense ministers will also take part in the meeting, meeting among themselves the day before. Ukraine and the Middle East will be the two main items on the agenda. But Kaja Kallas has also scheduled a discussion that could determine the fate of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and the European External Action Service she runs. Since taking office on December 1, 2024, Ursula von der Leyen has waged a behind-the-scenes campaign to take over the High Representative’s powers. Transfers of responsibilities, leaks, humiliations, blocking tactics: the Commission president is using every means available to undermine Kallas.<\/p>\n

A conflict at the heart of EU decision-making<\/strong><\/p>\n

The debate over the future of the European External Action Service has been going on for several months. France wants to preserve Kallas’s powers, even strengthen them, by giving the High Representative authority over the commissioners responsible for foreign policy. For von der Leyen, that’s unacceptable: the Commission president wants to control the EU’s diplomatic tools, and diplomacy itself. She has already extended her reach into the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf, creating a dedicated directorate-general within the Commission for the purpose.<\/p>\n

A restructuring<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a difficult year, Kallas is trying to shore up her position by restructuring the leadership of the European External Action Service. A new trio will take up their posts on September 1. Former Dutch defense minister Kajsa Ollongren has been appointed the Service’s new secretary-general. Ollongren served in Mark Rutte’s governments, both as deputy prime minister and as interior minister, after a long career at the top of the Dutch civil service. Kallas has also announced the appointment of two deputy secretaries-general: alongside Estonia’s Matti Maasikas, who will handle geoeconomic and inter-institutional affairs, France’s David Cvach, currently France’s ambassador to NATO, will become deputy secretary-general for security and defense.<\/p>\n

Kaja Kallas’s choices<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kallas’s picks for the top of the European External Action Service show her intent to respond to von der Leyen’s challenge. Ollongren carries real political weight, has attended meetings of defense ministers and of the Alliance, and is close to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte; she will be the one handling relations with member states as well as with other institutions. Cvach is France’s ambassador to NATO, but is also deeply versed in EU affairs, having served as director-general for the European Union at the Quai d’Orsay. Ollongren, Maasikas and Cvach will also be tasked with drafting a paper on reforming the European External Action Service following the foreign ministers’ discussion at the Gymnich meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A crisis-prone August The European Union is officially on holiday in August. The Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU wound down their activities between mid- and late July. The “rentr\u00e9e” is scheduled for Monday, August 31, with an informal meeting of defense ministers in Denmark. Ursula von der Leyen and her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":12,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7878"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7967,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7878\/revisions\/7967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}