Majority of EU leaders call for emergency talks after migrants overrun Spanish North African enclave

A majority of EU countries call for emergency talks on the sudden inflow of tens of thousands of migrants into Spain's enclave of Ceuta in North Africa.
An open letter from the leaders of 22 of the EU's 27 members demands that the bloc's interior ministers have a video meeting "as a matter of urgency" to agree on a speedy coordinated response, and to "prevent further uncontrolled crossings."
"We have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration," it says.
The letter was initiated by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose country has temporarily suspended Schengen-area rules with Spain, and by her Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, who said on Friday that the EU should consider suspending Schengen cooperation with Spain.
Among the other signatories are German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the prime ministers of Hungary, Sweden and Poland, but not the French and Portuguese leaders, whose countries directly border Spain.
"We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible," the letter says. "Such a perception would encourage further attempts, undermine confidence in our common migration policy and have repercussions for all Member States."
Spain's interior ministry said today that nearly all of the 60,000 migrants who breached the border since Wednesday had left and the situation in Ceuta was nearly back to normal.
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday also called for a meeting of the 27 EU interior ministers, and criticized some EU countries for what he called their "selfish" attitude in response to the migrant crisis in Ceuta.
"In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction," he wrote in a letter addressed to the heads of the bloc, seen by AFP.