Ceuta and immigration: the debate dividing Spain's economy

Ceuta: the border that sparks the economic controversy

Claiming that immigration determines wage levels is convenient, but false. The Ceuta crisis has brought a figure back to the table: several million people are said to have arrived in Spain in just a few years. The question is whether that arrival explains wage stagnation, the housing price surge and the pressure on public services. Judging by the arguments traded back and forth, the answer is not the one either the Government or the opposition wants to hear.

Some argue that migrant workers are not what wreck wages, but rather the working conditions imposed by companies. The argument rests on the fact that real wages have been stagnant since before immigration accelerated. Those who defend this thesis point to countries with more foreign population than Spain, where the minimum wage has been raised to 2,500 euros a month without the labour market collapsing.

Opposing them is the camp that attributes to the mass entry of workers a downward pressure on wages and a rise in housing prices unlike anything in living memory. In this reading, the border is not just a security problem, but the direct cause of Spaniards' loss of purchasing power. In between lies the uncomfortable fact: both phenomena — immigration and precarity — have coincided in time, but causality has not been proven.

Housing prices come closest to a consensus: they have risen to record levels. However, blaming it all on migratory demand ignores the lack of supply, the conversion of homes into tourist flats and purchases by investment funds. The most cautious reading suggests that immigration adds pressure in strained areas, but does not explain the structural problem.

Ceuta concentrates all the contradictions. On one hand, it is seen as a strategic military enclave for controlling the strait; on the other, as an inhabited territory demanding a European migration policy that does not exist. Some propose dismantling the city and turning it into a military base, an idea that ignores the residents. Realpolitik, however, prevails: as long as Segarro uses the border as a pressure valve, no management proposal will be enough.

The controversy has ended up as an exchange of blows between blocs. It is the central Government's fault, says one side. No, the responsibility lies with the autonomous communities and the lack of a State, replies the other. Meanwhile, the anecdote of the patient with metastatic cancer left unattended by a foreign locum doctor with no continuity of care sums up the real antiestéticar: the quality of public services is also at stake. The available data suggest the system can withstand the pressure, but not indefinitely.

If immigration were the sole cause of the economic ills, closing the borders would be enough. It did not work in the past, and it probably will not now. The controversy will remain open, not for lack of data, but because nobody wants to pay the cost of the solutions.