Spain will re-open the land borders of Ceuta and Melilla with Morocco on Tuesday 17 May – precisely from midnight between Monday and Tuesday of next week.
In a statement, the Spanish government said that the Minister for Home Affairs, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, will this week sign the ministerial order on borders ‘that will modify the one that has kept these crossing points closed since March 2020’.
It said that the re-opening ‘is the result of the bilateral work carried out with the Moroccan authorities’ following the meeting between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the King of Morocco, Mohamed IV, and which has ‘allowed the mechanisms that will govern the re-opening of the border crossings – gradual, orderly and with all the guarantees of security and health’.
The ‘gradual’ first phase of the re-opening will therefore begin on 17 May, at which time citizens and residents of the European Union and those authorised to move within the Schengen Area will be able to enter Spanish territory through the El Tarajal crossing in Ceuta and Beni Enzar in Melilla. It will still be essential to meet the health requirements established by the Health Ministry for these authorised border crossing points.
Then from Tuesday 31 May, the government said that ‘legally recognised cross-border workers will also be able to enter Spanish territory’.
During this gradual process, a statement said that ‘the Spanish-Moroccan working groups will determine the following categories of persons and goods that will be able to access Ceuta and Melilla through the border with Morocco’.
The Spanish Ministry of Home Affairs has said that it has also reinforced police forces in both Ceuta and Melilla ‘to guarantee security needs’.
ALSO READ: Pedro Sánchez visits Morocco to mark ‘new stage’ after Western Sahara reversal.
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