EU Leaders Slam Sánchez Over Mass Immigrant Amnesty

According to Brussels Signal, between three and four EU leaders directly challenged Sánchez during the first session of the European Council, complaining that Madrid had proceeded with legalising roughly 500,000 illegal immigrants without prior consultation with other member states. The confrontation came just one day after the European Parliament approved the bloc’s most stringent immigration reforms in decades.

Among those who took the floor to criticise the Spanish leader were Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, both representing right-wing governments, as well as Denmark’s Social Democrat Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. The criticism centred on the fact that Spain’s unilateral decision to grant legal status to half a million people effectively grants those individuals freedom of movement throughout the Schengen zone.

One European leader reportedly cautioned Sánchez that his regularisation programme meant at least 500,000 additional migrants now able to circulate freely across Europe, and expressed frustration that other governments had not been consulted before such a consequential decision was implemented.

The tense exchange followed an address by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, whose institution had approved the Return Regulation by a vote of 418 to 218 on June 17. The legislation permits member states to establish return hubs or deportation centres in countries outside the European Union, a policy framework that Sánchez and his left-wing government have openly opposed.

Madrid’s Open-Door Approach at Odds With Continental Shift

The Spanish government has consistently advocated for an open Europe in which immigration is treated as an economic driver rather than a security concern, and maintains that it fully implements the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum. In late January, Madrid approved a decree regularising approximately 500,000 undocumented immigrants, placing Spain sharply at odds with the harder line now dominant across much of Europe.

The European Commission has warned for months that newly legalised immigrants in Spain could migrate onward to other EU countries via the Schengen free movement area. EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner told the European Parliament in February that a residence permit does not constitute unlimited freedom of movement across the Union.

In his defence, Sánchez has argued that the majority of those covered by Spain’s regularisation scheme are of Latin American origin with linguistic and cultural ties to Spain, making them unlikely to relocate elsewhere in Europe. That argument appears to have failed to convince his counterparts at the summit, who view the mass legalisation as a fait accompli that undermines coordinated European migration control.

With information from Brussels Signal