Historical basis and genesis of the fence

Ceuta has been under uninterrupted Spanish sovereignty since 1580 and Melilla since 1497: both cities have been Spanish since before the modern Moroccan State existed and long before the Alawite dynasty —which today claims them— acceded to power in 1666. This anteriority is not an erudite fact, but the core of the dispute: the Moroccan claim does not rest on previous historical titles, but on a nationalist construct after independence in 1956, fueled by the Alawite monarchy as an instrument of internal legitimation and gradual pressure on Spain. This chapter reconstructs the foundations of Spanish sovereignty, the genesis and evolution of the Moroccan claim, and the religious and dynastic architecture that sustains it, up to the strategic lesson of Perejil (2002): the substitution of the military route by hybrid warfare, whose main physical scenario is the land border described in the following chapter.

1.1 Spanish sovereignty: historical and legal foundations

1.1.1 Ceuta: from the Portuguese conquest of 1415 to loyalty to the Hispanic Monarchy (1580-1668) and the Treaty of Lisbon

Ceuta was conquered by Portugal in 1415, in the expedition of John I with Princes Edward, Peter and Henry —the future Henry "the Navigator"—, who wrested the stronghold from the Marinid Sultanate of Fez. The capture, the first permanent European expansion in Africa, responded to the dual logic of controlling the Strait and advancing towards the Saharan gold trade (geografiainfinita.com; RESI, "Ceuta and Melilla in terms of national security").

The turning point came with the Portuguese dynastic crisis: in 1580, with the Iberian Union under Philip II, Ceuta became integrated into the Hispanic Monarchy. When the Portuguese Restoration War broke out in 1640, Ceuta made a singular decision: the city and its council opted to remain loyal to the Hispanic Monarchy, refusing to follow Portugal's fate. In recognition, Philip IV granted it the title of "Most Faithful," which the city retains in its official nomenclature. The Treaty of Lisbon of 1668, by which Spain recognized Portugal's independence, closed the matter through diplomatic channels: Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta was expressly recognized in an international treaty in force (RESI; vozpopuli).

The stronghold also demonstrated its defensive strength: the Alawite Sultan Muley Ismail subjected it to a prolonged siege between 1694 and 1727 without succeeding in taking it; the first power that attempted to forcibly reverse Hispanic sovereignty over Ceuta failed under the very dynasty that today formulates the claim. The continuity since 1580 —and the title consolidated in 1668— forms a body of historical prescription that no court or decolonization process has formally questioned.

1.1.2 Melilla: peaceful capture in 1497 by Estopiñán, uninterrupted sovereignty prior to the Alawite State (1666)

Melilla was taken on September 17, 1497, by Pedro de Estopiñán y Virués, leading some 5,000 men financed by the III Duke of Medina Sidonia and with express authorization from the Catholic Monarchs. The relevant fact for the current legal debate is that the expedition found the city unpopulated —abandoned after internal conflicts in the kingdom of Fez—, so the taking occurred without bloodshed: there was no conquest over a population exercising effective sovereignty, but rather the occupation of a vacant stronghold (Museo del Ejército; melillamonumental.es; Melilla Hoy, 16/09/2025).

Since that date, Spanish sovereignty over Melilla has known no interruption: more than five centuries of continuity. Two chronological comparisons illustrate this anteriority. The first, internal: Melilla has been Spanish since before Navarre, incorporated into the Crown in 1512. The second, the decisive one: Melilla had been under Hispanic sovereignty for approximately 170 years when the Alawite dynasty acceded to power in 1666. The reigning house in Rabat cannot, therefore, allege any prior dynastic title over a city that was never under its authority nor under that of the sultanates that preceded it.

1.1.3 Treaties of delimitation (1767-1860) and the Hispano-Moroccan Declaration of 1956: Ceuta and Melilla outside decolonization

Sovereignty over the enclaves is not based solely on prescription, but on a chain of bilateral treaties that delimited their perimeters with the sultans of Morocco: the Treaty of Marrakech of 1767, the agreements of 1799, the treaties of Tangier and Larache of 1844, that of Tangier of 1848, and, as a culmination, the Treaty of Wad-Ras of 1860, signed after the African War of 1859-1860, which precisely fixed the limits of both cities (Diario de Sesiones del Congreso, Comisión 73, 13/03/2024). These are, therefore, borders consented to by the Moroccan sultanate itself in successive international instruments, not unilaterally imposed lines.

The decisive legal milestone is the joint Hispano-Moroccan Declaration of April 7, 1956, signed at the time of the independence of the Kingdom of Morocco. In it, the territory of the new State was delimited in accordance with the aforementioned historical treaties, which expressly left Ceuta and Melilla —which never formed part of the Protectorate— outside the decolonization process. The contrast is revealing: Ifni, Tarfaya, and the Sahara were territories subjected to processes of retrocession or decolonization, while Morocco tried unsuccessfully in 1975 to have the United Nations (UN) include Ceuta and Melilla on the list of non-self-governing territories, a list on which they have never appeared —unlike Gibraltar— (El Orden Mundial, 19/04/2023; RESI). The international community, in its institutional practice, has never treated both cities as territory pending decolonization.

1.1.4 Autonomy Statutes of 1995 (LO 1 and 2/1995): current legal nature of the cities

The current status of Ceuta and Melilla was established with Organic Laws 1/1995 and 2/1995, of March 13, which approved their respective Statutes of Autonomy in application of article 144.b of the Spanish Constitution (Ministerio de Hacienda; BOME). Both cities were constituted as single administrations that accumulate regional and local competencies, with an Assembly of 25 members and a president-mayor at the head. The statutory approval —almost two decades after the beginning of the autonomous process in the rest of Spain— had a double meaning: internally, it completed the full institutional integration of the two enclaves into the State of Autonomies; externally, it sent a signal to Rabat that Spanish sovereignty was not a transitory anomaly, but a consolidated constitutional architecture not subject to negotiation.

It is worth highlighting the resulting legal nature: Ceuta and Melilla are not colonial enclaves in the sense of decolonization law, but entities of the Spanish State with full citizenship, representation in the Cortes Generales, and membership in the European Union. Any notion of "return" lacks a parallel in decolonization practice, as it would imply the forced transfer of a population that has never self-determined in favor of Moroccan sovereignty.

1.2 The Moroccan claim: from "Greater Morocco" to gradual pressure

1.2.1 Thesis of Greater Morocco (Allal El-Fassi, Istiqlal) and its link with Gibraltar in Hassan II's strategy

The claim over Ceuta and Melilla originates with the nationalism of independence. After 1956, the leader of the Istiqlal party, Allal El-Fassi, articulated the thesis of "Greater Morocco": a maximalist territory that would include Ceuta, Melilla, the peñones (rocks), Ifni, Tarfaya, and the Sahara. As an ideology, it functioned more as a myth of national cohesion than as an executable program; in fact, the real priorities of the Moroccan State show a clear hierarchy: first the Western Sahara —with the 2007 Autonomy Plan as the only admissible solution—, then gradual pressure on Ceuta, Melilla, the waters and the Atlantic façade, and thirdly the consolidation of Morocco as a geoeconomic hub of Africa.

Hassan II (1961-1999) instrumentalised the claim with characteristic diplomatic cunning: he linked it to Gibraltar to turn the dispute into a Spanish-British-Moroccan issue in which Spain would be worn down by proxy. Two of his phrases summarise the strategy: «One day I will stroll along Gran Vía when Morocco has recovered Ceuta and Melilla. That will be when Gibraltar is returned to you»; and, even more explicitly, «Spain works for us, because by recovering the Rock we will recover Ceuta and Melilla» (El Orden Mundial, 19/04/2023; RESI). In 1975, Morocco unsuccessfully tried to have the UN include both cities on the list of non-self-governing territories; in 1987, Hassan II abandoned the parallelism with Gibraltar and described the situation as «anachronistic», a gesture of de-escalation that did not imply renunciation of the substance of the claim.

1.2.2 Milestones of verbal pressure: 2007 royal visit crisis, El Othmani 2020, Throne Speech 2022, letter to the UN and Senate 2023

Since 2000, the claim has followed a pattern of escalating verbal pressure, dosed according to Rabat's timetable of interests. In November 2007, the first visit of Kings Juan Carlos I and Sofía to Ceuta and Melilla triggered a diplomatic crisis: Morocco recalled its ambassador in Madrid, Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi declared that «there are currently only two territories in the world occupied by foreigners: Palestine and Ceuta and Melilla», and Mohammed VI described the visit as «regrettable» and «a nostalgic act of a dark era» (El País, via University of Tartu thesis). The comparison with Palestine marked the rhetorical ceiling of the offensive.

On December 21, 2020, in the midst of the Ghali case crisis and months before the Ceuta migratory crisis of May 2021, Prime Minister Saadeddine El Othmani stated on Egyptian television that Ceuta and Melilla «are Moroccan like the Sahara» and that «the day will come when we will reopen the matter»; Spain summoned the Moroccan ambassador (elEspañol; La Vanguardia, 22/12/2020). In July 2022, in his Throne Speech, Mohammed VI declared that «Morocco has not ceased since its independence to demand an end to the occupation by Spain of Ceuta and Melilla and the neighbouring islands», although he proposed a «joint reflection cell», an ambiguous formula that combined reaffirmation and apparent opening of dialogue. In September 2022, Rabat sent a letter to the UN stating that it has no land borders with Spain but rather «points of passage» and described Melilla as an «occupied presidio»; in April 2023, the President of the Senate, Enaam Mayara, reiterated the condition of «occupied cities» recoverable «without resorting to arms» (Diario de Sesiones del Congreso, 13/03/2024).

In contrast, the Spanish position has been unwavering: indisputable sovereignty, cities predating the modern Moroccan State, never integrated into the Protectorate and absent from the UN decolonisation list. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, summarised it in June 2022: «We do not accept that Ceuta and Melilla are spoken of as occupied cities» (Público, 28/02/2023; Real Instituto Elcano, 2021). Mayara's formula —«without resorting to arms»— is, in analytical terms, the most significant in the series: it confirms that the military option was ruled out after Perejil (see 1.3.3) and that pressure is shifting to the diplomatic, economic and demographic spheres.

The table allows us to appreciate two regularities that structure the dispute. The first is the temporal asymmetry of the titles: the column of sovereignty begins in 1415 and is consolidated by treaties between 1668 and 1860, while the claim does not appear until 1956 —that is, it is a construction five centuries after the events it purports to revise—. The second is the change in the vector of Moroccan pressure: until 2002, sovereignist rhetoric and the readiness for military action (Perejil) coexisted; from that year onwards, the series is reduced to verbal and diplomatic pressure —visits, speeches, writings to the UN— with the explicit renunciation of arms formulated by the Senate itself in 2023. The anomalous data point in the series is precisely 2002, the last episode of direct force, the result of which explains the subsequent transformation of Rabat's strategy towards the hybrid coercion that underpins this report.

1.2.3 Colonial context: Protectorate 1912-1956, Rif, Tarfaya 1958, Ifni 1969, Sahara 1975 — why Ceuta and Melilla are legally distinct

The confusion —sometimes self-serving— between Ceuta and Melilla and the effectively decolonized territories is the main narrative asset of the Moroccan claim. The Spanish Protectorate of Morocco was established by the Treaty of Fez (30/03/1912) and the Hispano-French Convention (27/11/1912), which assigned Spain the northern zone (Yebala, Gomara, and Rif) and the southern zone of Tarfaya (Cape Juby). Its consolidation cost the Rif War of 1921-1926 —the Disaster of Annual, the ephemeral Rif Republic of Abd el-Krim, and the Alhucemas Landing of 1925—, with effective occupation of the entire territory only around 1927 (Nueva Revista; defensa.gob.es).

The decolonization itinerary was precise and complete: independence of the northern zone on April 7, 1956; cession of Tarfaya by agreement of April 1, 1958; retrocession of Ifni —territory of Spanish sovereignty since Wad-Ras (1860), effectively occupied in 1934 by Colonel Capaz and scene of the Ifni-Sahara war of 1957-58— in January 1969; and abandonment of the Sahara through the Madrid Accords of November 14, 1975, after the Green March. Spain, therefore, retroceded everything that was decolonizable. Ceuta and Melilla do not appear in that sequence for a simple legal reason: they were never a protectorate, but rather cities of full sovereignty predating the Alawi state itself, delimited by treaties and excluded from the 1956 Declaration. The analogy with Gibraltar, Ifni, or the Sahara is legally unsustainable; its persistence in Moroccan discourse responds to political logic, not to law.

1.3 The Alawi monarchy and religion as the architecture of power

1.3.1 Alawi dynasty since 1666, Cherifian legitimacy and Amir al-Muminin: circumscribed religious authority (Ash'ari, Maliki, Sufi), independent of Saudi Wahhabism

The Alawi dynasty has reigned in Morocco since 1666 and bases its legitimacy on its Cherifian status: descent from the Prophet's lineage. Morocco is, along with Jordan, one of the few Muslim countries governed by a Cherifian house, and also a state that was never under Ottoman rule, which fuels a narrative of millennial sovereign continuity that the monarchy projects onto its territorial claims. After the interruption of the Protectorate (1912-1956), Hassan II (1961-1999) rebuilt monarchical power on three simultaneous pillars: the centralization of the Majzen —the palace power apparatus—, direct military command, and religious authority.

This religious authority is embodied in the title of Amir al-Muminin (Commander of the Faithful), which Mohammed VI exercises with a deliberately circumscribed scope: he does not seek a universal pan-Islamic leadership, but rather religious authority confined to Morocco and projected as soft power towards West Africa, where the Kingdom trains imams and exports its model. The doctrinal content of this model is the traditional Moroccan triangle: Ash'ari dogma in theology, Maliki fiqh (jurisprudence) in law, and Sufism as social spirituality. This is an institutional Islam explicitly opposed to Saudi Wahhabism —from which Morocco is not dependent—, which gives the monarchy a double strategic advantage: internal legitimacy against contesting Islamism and value for the West as a religious counterweight partner. For the analyst, what is relevant is that the claim to Ceuta and Melilla is inserted into this architecture: recovering the «occupied» cities is a state duty invested with dynastic and religious legitimacy, not a political option revocable by a government in office.

1.3.2 The Hassan II Grand Mosque (1993): popular and pan-Islamic funding, symbolism over the Atlantic, monumentality as a state message

The Hassan II Grand Mosque in Casablanca, inaugurated in 1993, is the architectural materialization of this architecture of power. Its funding combined a national popular subscription —with contributions, voluntary or induced, from millions of Moroccans— with donations from Muslim and Gulf countries, making it simultaneously a national and pan-Islamic project. Its location is not accidental: it rises over the Atlantic, alluding to the Quranic verse of the «Throne of God upon the waters», with a 210-meter minaret —the tallest in the world at the time— crowned by a laser oriented towards Mecca.

Its monumentality fulfills a function as a state message in three directions. Internally, it displays the monarchy's mobilizing capacity and fuses popular devotion with dynastic loyalty. Towards the Muslim world, it posits Morocco as an autonomous religious power against the Saudi axis. And towards the Atlantic —that is, towards Spain and Europe—, it projects the Kingdom's strategic ambition over its oceanic façade, the same one where the delimitation of waters, the Canary Islands front, and the claim to Ceuta and Melilla are currently played out. The mosque is not, therefore, an accessory cultural detail: it is the petrified declaration that the Alawi monarchy understands itself as a power with an outstanding territorial and oceanic horizon.

1.3.3 From Hassan II (Green March 1975) to Mohammed VI: Ceuta and Melilla as outstanding legacy; the lesson of Perejil 2002 (Operation Romeo-Sierra) and the shift to hybrid warfare

The operational precedent for the Moroccan territorial strategy is the Green March of 1975: Hassan II mobilized hundreds of thousands of civilians to force Spain's withdrawal from the Sahara and consummate its de facto annexation, demonstrating that state-orchestrated demographic pressure could achieve territorial results without conventional war. This lesson —human mass as a vector of coercion— is part of the Moroccan doctrinal repertoire and is directly pertinent to the analysis of the Ceuta and Melilla border.

Mohammed VI has inherited the dossier with a clear hierarchy: with the Sahara consolidated as the top priority (2007 Autonomy Plan, 2020 US recognition), the claim to Ceuta, Melilla, the peñones, and the Atlantic platform constitutes the monarchy's outstanding legacy. The turning point was the 2002 Perejil crisis: the occupation of the islet by a Moroccan detachment was reversed by Operation Romeo-Sierra of the Spanish Armed Forces, a swift and casualty-free military action that restored the status quo. The lesson Rabat drew was structural: direct military action against a NATO partner has an unacceptable cost. Since then, the strategy has reoriented towards hybrid warfare: gradual diplomatic pressure (the milestones of 1.2.2), customs and commercial strangulation of both cities, instrumentalization of migratory flows, and a sovereignist narrative offensive, all below the threshold of armed confrontation —and consistent with the 2023 Senate formula, «without resorting to arms»—. It is within this framework that the fence acquires its historical meaning. If military pressure was ruled out in 2002 and the territorial claim is an inalienable dynastic imperative, the land border of Ceuta and Melilla —the only two land contact points between the European Union and Africa— becomes the scenario where Moroccan hybrid coercion is exerted with the greatest intensity: the border infrastructure is not a response to abstract immigration, but a material shield against a state strategy that has made human mobility an instrument of sovereignist pressure. The following chapter reconstructs the genesis and evolution of this infrastructure, from the first sanitary fence in 1971 to the anti-climb fence of 2022.

The fence that today delimits Ceuta and Melilla was not born as a migratory border or as a single work, but as the accumulated result of five decades of successive responses to different pressures: sanitary, police, migratory, and, finally, comprehensive security. Each generation of the device retains the imprint of the crisis that motivated it, and its chronology corrects a widespread belief: the first physical barrier on the Hispano-Moroccan border does not date from the 1990s, but from 1971. This chapter reconstructs that material evolution —layouts, heights, materials, surveillance systems, and costs— as an indispensable premise for understanding the current design and its effects on the flows that the next chapter will analyze in depth.

2.1 Background and first generation

2.1.1 The 1971 fence in Melilla (cholera epidemic): the forgotten origin

The first documented physical barrier on the perimeter did not respond to migratory pressure, but to sanitary pressure. In 1971, faced with a cholera epidemic declared in Morocco, Spanish authorities erected a military fence in Melilla approximately one meter high, intended to channel transit towards health control points (Delegación del Gobierno en Melilla, in response to Maldita.es, 16/02/2021; Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado, CEAR). It was a symbolic rather than defensive obstacle: a low fence, without technical means, designed to regulate pedestrian flows and not to impede them.

This antecedent, usually omitted from the official chronology, holds analytical relevance. Firstly, it demonstrates that the instrumentalization of the land border as a risk control tool —sanitary then, migratory later— predates by two decades the usual narrative that places the origin of the fence in Schengen. Secondly, the 1971 episode anticipates a pattern that will be repeated in every subsequent generation of the device: the infrastructure is always built in reaction, after a concrete event, and not as a result of long-term strategic planning. The cholera fence disappeared with the emergency, but it established the principle that Melilla's perimeter was a physically closable space.

2.1.2 First modern fence (1993-1996): Schengen context and European funding

The first fence with a migratory function was erected in the first half of the 1990s, in a context marked by two converging factors: the arrival of Algerian citizens —in the context of the Algerian civil war— and sub-Saharan migrants who were beginning to use the two cities as a gateway to the European Union, and Spain's legal transformation into the guardian of the European external border after the 1985 Immigration Law and the application of the Schengen acquis from 1995. The main source dates the first modern fence to 1993 in both cities —in Ceuta, a wire structure of about 2.5 meters—, while the Centre Delàs d'Estudis per la Pau and the Transnational Institute (TNI) date the one in Ceuta to 1993 and the one in Melilla to 1996 (Centre Delàs/TNI). The discrepancy, minor chronologically, reflects the absence of a single administrative record regarding works executed in phases and with diverse funding; this report adopts the 1993-1996 interval as a prudent range.

That first generation was technically rudimentary: a simple, low-height mesh, without a consolidated service road or automatic detection, surmountable with basic tools. Its cost was largely borne by European funds, although the exact amount is disputed among sources: one study cites 33 million euros from FEDER funds (European Regional Development Fund), while another source speaks of European co-financing of 75% of the total, without disaggregating the amount (Centre Delàs/TNI; verified research, approximate data). Both references are not necessarily contradictory —they may refer to different phases or budget items—, but the divergence advises against presenting any single figure for the initial funding as definitive. What is structural is the fact itself: from its origin, the Ceuta and Melilla fence was partly a European infrastructure paid for with European money, a direct precedent for the outsourcing logic that today articulates cooperation with Morocco.

2.1.3 Double fence 1998-2000: Melilla (12 km) and Ceuta (8.3 km), integrated surveillance system

The second generation arrived by express political decision. The Council of Ministers on January 30, 1998, with José María Aznar as Prime Minister, approved the replacement of Melilla's fence with a double fence system approximately three meters high and 12 kilometers long, executed by Ferrovial at an approximate cost of 2,000 million pesetas (Maldita.es; ABC, 04/09/1998). The concept changed in nature: it was no longer a fence but a system, with two parallel barriers separated by an interdiction space that slowed the progress of anyone who overcame the first and allowed the Civil Guard time to react.

In Ceuta, the process was longer and more costly. The 8.3-kilometer outer fence, over three meters high, was completed in February 2000, after about seven years of work and an investment exceeding 8,000 million pesetas, incorporating a perimeter surveillance road and the first Integrated Surveillance and Monitoring System, with automatic intrusion detection and dissuasive loudspeakers (El País, 02/02/1999; SOS Racismo). The cost asymmetry between both cities —four times more in Ceuta for a shorter route— is explained by the orography of Mount Hacho and Anyera, which made the enclosure more expensive, and by the early incorporation of the technological package.

With the double fence of 1998-2000, the basic architecture that survives today was established: two parallel physical barriers, a service lane between them, lighting, and centralized electronic surveillance. The design logic was no longer to prevent all crossings —impossible with three meters of height— but to make the crossing a detectable, timed, and respondable event. This logic of «detection and delay,» rather than impenetrability, would remain the key to understanding all subsequent generations.

2.2 The 2005 crisis and reinforcement

2.2.1 Assaults of August-October 2005: 14-15 dead, makeshift ladders, Army deployment

The autumn of 2005 marked the birth of the massive coordinated assault as a tactic, and with it the obsolescence of the three-meter double fence. The complete sequence of that cycle —the Melilla assaults of August 28 and October 6 and the Ceuta assault of September 29, with a total balance of 14-15 fatalities between August and October (CESTIM thesis; El País; ABC) and the denunciation by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) for the abandonment of migrants in the desert— is chronologically developed in chapter 3 (section 3.1). For the material history of the device, the decisive factor was the method used: makeshift ladders —made from branches and scrap material, carried by teams of several people and simultaneously propped up at dozens of points— defeated the concept of «detection and delay» by saturation: the system detected, but could not respond to a hundred climbing points at once.

The immediate response was militarization: deployment of the Army in support of the Civil Guard and mutual reinforcement of surveillance contingents on both sides of the border, the first precedent of Morocco's operational co-responsibility in the material defense of the perimeter.

2.2.2 Elevation to 6 meters, concertina wire (2005), Melilla's three-dimensional cable fence (2006)

The design lesson learned from 2005 was that the critical parameters were climbing height and overcoming time. The government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero consequently raised the double fence from three to six meters —with a triple barrier configuration in Melilla—, installed concertina wire (helices of razor-bladed wire) on top of the most exposed sections in 2005, and added active measures such as pepper sprayers (CISDE; La Vanguardia, 22/01/2020).

The most unique component of this generation was Melilla's three-dimensional cable fence, informally dubbed the «third fence»: a network of some 1,200 kilometers of tensioned steel cable along 9.9 kilometers, with an approximate cost of 20 million euros and a declared capacity to delay an intruder's progression by about fifteen minutes, presented at the time as the first barrier of its type in the world. The main source dates it to 2006, while the Centre Delàs places it in 2007, a minor discrepancy likely reflecting the difference between tender and entry into service. The logic of the cable fence was purely one of delay: it did not prevent, but it turned climbing into a slow, painful, and visible process, restoring to the device the temporal advantage that the ladders had nullified. Its real effectiveness was debated from the beginning, and its maintenance proved costly, which anticipated its dismantling fifteen years later.

It is important to emphasize the contradictory nature of this generation: the 2005-2006 reinforcement increased the potential lethality of the perimeter —the blades caused hundreds of injuries over the years— without reducing the pressure, which simply accumulated in the settlements of Mount Gurugú (Melilla) and the forests surrounding Fnideq (Ceuta), awaiting new opportunities.

2.3 Surveillance systems and technology

2.3.1 SIVE, thermal cameras, sensors, facial recognition at border crossings (2019)

Parallel to the physical barrier, the technological component gained relative weight. The Ceuta and Melilla device was integrated into the conceptual framework of SIVE (Integrated External Surveillance System), originally conceived for maritime control of the Strait and later extended as a doctrine of surveillance for the entire external border. The mature architecture combined video surveillance cameras, infrared sensors, volumetric and motion sensors, perimeter lighting spotlights, fiber optic cabling, and a control center that fused all signals (Biblioteca del Congreso de Chile; CISDE).

The 2019 renovation illustrates the state of the art: in Ceuta, the closed-circuit television was modernized with 66 cameras, 14 of which are thermal, and facial recognition was incorporated at authorized border crossings —El Tarajal in Ceuta; Beni Enzar, Barrio Chino, Mariguari, and Farhana in Melilla— (La Moncloa, 15/11/2019). Facial recognition at legal crossings responds to a different logic than that of the fence: it does not detect irregular crossings but automates identity verification at regular crossings, through which tens of thousands of people pass daily in what is known as atypical cross-border trade.

The analysis of this technological layer requires a relevant nuance for the report as a whole: the fence as a system is now more electronic than steel. Volumetric and thermal sensors ensure that practically no approach to the perimeter goes unnoticed; the bottleneck of the system is no longer detection but the physical response capability of agents in the strip between fences and, above all, the legal possibility of acting on those who have breached it. This paradox—maximum observation capacity with limited intervention capacity—will reappear in the chapters on the legal framework and the current situation.

2.4 From razor wire to smart fence

2.4.1 Removal of razor wire 2019-2020 (32 M€ Plan, Grande-Marlaska) and dismantling of the three-dimensional cable

The razor wire had an oscillating trajectory that summarizes the political debate on the system: partially removed in 2007, they were fully reinstated in 2013 after the major assaults of that period, and in 2018 the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, announced their definitive replacement by “less harmful” elements. The Council of Ministers on January 18, 2019, approved the Reinforcement and Modernization Plan for the enclosures, endowed with a total of 32 million euros (La Moncloa, 15/11/2019).

The effective removal was carried out in December 2019 in Ceuta and in January 2020 in Melilla, being completed around June 2020, and was accompanied by the dismantling of Melilla's three-dimensional cable, the “third fence” of 2006-2007 (La Vanguardia; Público; Centre Delàs). The change in criteria was simultaneously ethical—the razor wire, an emblem of the so-called “Fortress Europe,” was a recurring cause of injuries and social condemnation—and engineering: the razor wire, installed on scalable fences, added damage but no real impediment to anyone climbing with improvised protection, and their elimination was only viable if the base barrier was redesigned to be intrinsically impossible to climb.

A side but significant fact: while Spain removed the razor wire from its side, Morocco installed razor wire on its side with European funding (Centre Delàs). The outsourcing of migratory control thus also included the outsourcing of the most harmful elements of the system, shifting both the human cost of deterrence and the political responsibility for it to Moroccan territory.

2.4.2 The new anti-climb fence (TRAGSA/ISDEFE, 17.9 M€): 10 m, inverted combs, rotating rollers, opaque sheet metal; completion 2021-2022

The comprehensive replacement of the old structures was awarded to TRAGSA (a public company of the Ministry of Agriculture) with a technical study by ISDEFE (Systems Engineering for the Defence of Spain, a public company dependent on the Ministry of Defence), for an amount of 17,899,886.69 euros—8,366,337.42 euros in Ceuta and 9,533,549.27 euros in Melilla—, under the umbrella of the 32-million-euro plan, with work starting in November 2019 and a foreseen period of ten months (La Moncloa, 15/11/2019). The choice of two state-owned companies, one of them in the defence sector, underlines the consideration of the perimeter as a national security infrastructure and not as an ordinary civil engineering project.

The resulting design represents a qualitative leap compared to all previous generations. The new structure combines bars at the base, an opaque central part of sheet metal with anti-climb perforations—which prevent foot support and block vision towards the interior—, an upper mesh, and a crowning with “inverted combs”: semi-circular tubes oriented towards Morocco that are impossible to grasp, completed in the final design with large rotating metal rollers that eliminate any gripping point at the top (La Vanguardia/EFE, 14/10/2020; El Faro de Ceuta, 05/08/2020; El Faro de Melilla, 25/08/2020). The height reaches 10 meters in the sections considered vulnerable—one meter more than the wall promoted by Donald Trump on the US border, according to the comparison disseminated at the time—, maintaining a layout of about 8 kilometers in Ceuta and about 12 in Melilla (Antena 3; El Confidencial).

The completion date is not definitively specified with a direct source by city: the ten-meter sections were under construction in October 2020, and completion forecasts moved between 2020 and 2022; the available evidence suggests that the works were substantially completed between 2021 and 2022 (approximate data). The logic of the new design is consistent with accumulated doctrine: all passive harmful elements (razor wire) are eliminated and replaced by mechanical impossibility of climbing (height, smooth surface, movable crowning), shifting the weight of deterrence from injury to the failure of the attempt.

A reading of the complete series reveals three structural trends. The first is the escalation of height: from one meter in 1971 to ten in 2021, multiplying the obstacle tenfold in half a century, with a clear turning point in 2005, when the massive assault demonstrated that three meters were scalable en masse. The second is the progressive replacement of deterrence by harm (blades, wire rope) with deterrence by physical impossibility (smooth surface, rotating topping), a transition that reduces the reputational cost of the device without sacrificing its effectiveness. The third is the stability of the layout: Ceuta's 8.3 kilometers and Melilla's 12 have barely changed since 1998-2000, confirming that the problem was never one of length but of scalability. The documented cumulative cost —around 50 million contemporary euros plus historical amounts in pesetas— is modest compared to the human resources deployed each year, suggesting that the barrier is, budget-wise, the minor component of a system whose bulk is personnel and surveillance.

The epilogue of this evolution is well-known: on June 24, 2022, with the new fence already in service, some 2,000 people assaulted the Melilla perimeter through the Barrio Chino area, and at least 23 died, the greatest tragedy documented at these borders (RESI; Reuters; BBC; Amnesty International). The event —which chapter 3 analyzes in detail— demonstrated that even Europe's most technically advanced barrier remains vulnerable to a coordinated mass when human factors, a weak access point, and a dissonant response on both sides of the border converge. The fifth generation of the fence did not close the history of the device: it shifted the flow towards the sea, towards border crossings, and towards the political engineering of the waves themselves, as subsequent chapters will develop.