Ceuta, Spain: a border business built on tobacco, croquettes and moto-taxis

Ceuta: business opportunity or mirage on Spain's southern border?

Anyone who sees Ceuta as a business opportunity is already too late. Spain's southern border sees constant migratory flows, an informal economy and a stock phrase: "where many see misfortune, I see an opportunity." The concrete schemes circulating to cash in on it range from crude to surreal, and most run into a wall: there are already a hundred moto-taxis on the route to Algeciras.

The border recipe book: from tobacco to croquettes

The ideas run from traditional to outlandish: selling tobacco, morning-after pills, a franchise for ham-stuffed cones, or opening a bar, because "that always makes money." The only proposal with a concrete figure is the water moto-taxi between Ceuta and Algeciras, but there are already around a hundred operators. In other words: saturation.

The shadow of the NGOs over local commerce

The sharpest analysis of the lot is also the most damning: brands and NGOs give away mobile phones, hoodies, sunglasses and condoms. Rhetorical question: what can you sell that they give away for free? The uncomfortable answer is that the only viable business would be charging those brands for counter-campaigns. Not exactly uplifting, but very much to the taste of the outrage economy.

The practical conclusion: anyone arriving in Ceuta in a hurry to make money will find transport already cornered, local commerce asphyxiated by humanitarian aid, and an ambient cynicism that turns even NGOs into a possible business disguise. If anything is going to move money at the border, it will be the brokers of controversy, not the last-minute sellers.