Ex-EU Commissioner Calls Ceuta Arrivals a Hybrid Attack Requiring Brussels Probe

Former European Commissioner Thierry Breton has characterized the mass irregular arrival of thousands of people from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in late July as a "hybrid attack" that requires investigation by Brussels. Breton, who served as the European Commissioner for Internal Market from 2019 to 2024, asserted that the event was not a migration crisis but a deliberate operation.

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Ceuta is not a migration crisis. It is an operation.

"Ceuta is not a migration crisis. It is an operation," Breton stated in an interview with the Belgian newspaper 'Le Soir.' He argued that the mobilization of 72,000 individuals did not occur spontaneously but was a coordinated action. Breton defined a hybrid attack as a strategy combining military, informational, cyber, and migratory means below the threshold of open conflict, designed to weaken an adversary without provoking a direct war.

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The arrival of thousands of people from Morocco irregularly to Ceuta at the end of July 'meets all the requirements of a hybrid attack,' whose origin Brussels must investigate and be uncovered through the community regulation on digital services.

Breton pointed to similarities with past events, citing Belarus's alleged organization of migrant transfers to the Polish border in 2021 and Russia's movement of migrants toward the Finnish border in late 2023. He noted that both instances were labeled as hybrid attacks by the EU, NATO, and affected states, suggesting Ceuta fits the same pattern.

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In both cases, the European Union, NATO and the affected states described these operations as hybrid attacks. Ceuta fits exactly into the same paradigm.

He also observed that Morocco did not act as it typically does by intercepting potential migrants near the border. Breton suggested the operation might involve "algorithmic pressure from private or semi-public actors" aiming to test European resilience or a "state signal directed at Madrid or Brussels" during sensitive bilateral negotiations. He dismissed the possibility of the event being coincidental, citing the coordinated organization involving social media and specific timing.

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The only hypothesis that can be ruled out is that of chance: Twenty thousand people in a Facebook group, eleven million impressions, a calibrated slogan, a moment chosen at the beginning of a European tourist and political peak... that is not improvised in a garage.