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But there is more than meets the eye and the country’s relation to the hot-button topic is complex, analysts told AFP.
Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s scheme to send asylum seekers to camps in non-EU Albania while their claims are processed hogged the headlines at last week’s EU summit.
The gathering ended with a call for more and quicker migrant returns and exploring “new ways” to counter illegal migration, in a potential allusion to the Italian plan.
Poland has proposed partially suspending asylum rights for irregular migrants and far-right parties with anti-immigration platforms influence politics in France, Hungary, the Netherlands and beyond.
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Swimming against the tide in Brussels was Spain’s left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who said projects like the Italy-Albania deal create more problems than they solve.
READ MORE: Italy slams Spain’s PM for rejecting Meloni’s migrant detention centres
“Safe and orderly” immigration is part of the answer to challenges including Europe’s ageing population, workforce shortages and growing pressure on welfare states, he argued.
“Ultimately, the Europe we want to be is at stake… we need to tackle migration thinking about future generations and not the next elections,” Sánchez said.
‘Unique case’
According to Blanca Garcés, senior research fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs , Spain is “a unique case in the European context”.
It stands out with its permanent scheme to legalise migrants’ status after three years of residency, and successive left-wing governments since 2018 have eased the procedure further, she noted.
Unlike in other European countries, immigration has not fuelled political polarisation in Spain, where the far-right Vox party initially gained popularity for other reasons, notably a separatist crisis in the northeastern region of Catalonia, Garcés said.
Spain’s relatively young democracy with an emphasis on rights, its long history of emigration and the needs of its informal economy — where migrants play an essential role — also contribute, she added.
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Spain has also adopted a more welcoming tone despite being on the illegal immigration front line.
Thousands of migrants crammed in often ramshackle boats from West Africa reach the Canary Islands in ever-greater numbers, overwhelming local authorities on the Atlantic archipelago.
READ ALSO: Boat tragedy pressures Spain to help Canaries with migrant surge
During an August visit to Senegal, Mauritania and The Gambia, key countries of origin for would-be irregular migrants, Sánchez called for “circular migration”.
This would allow people to work in Spain for a limited time to meet workforce needs before returning home, reducing the temptation of dangerous illegal routes.
Sánchez’s position is “a pragmatic vision” politically as well as economically, said Gemma Pinyol-Jiménez, head of migration and diversity at Instrategies.
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Instead of accommodating far-right discourses on migration, Sánchez is proposing a different narrative partly with election results in mind.
“If you buy the discourse of the far right, people end up voting for the original,” said Pinyol-Jiménez. Sánchez’s latest comments in Brussels “are good signs, but they aren’t enough”.
READ ALSO: Spain’s PM promises to scrap ‘unnecessary bureaucracy’ for foreigners
‘Ambiguous’ policy
A more “ambiguous” reality places Spain closer to its neighbours on immigration, said Lorenzo Gabrielli, senior researcher at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University.
Although Sánchez rejects migrant centres in non-EU countries, Spain aligns on cooperation with Morocco and externalising borders, Gabrielli said.
The imposing fences at Spain’s North African exclaves of Melilla and Ceuta bordering Morocco exude the image of “fortress Europe”.
Spain’s migration policy is “not necessarily very innovative or open”, but it appears as an alternative as European neighbours shift further to the right, said Gabrielli.
There has been a “turning point” in the narrative, but transforming this into more flexible policies remains to be seen, Gabrielli added.
El Pais daily reported this week that an immigration reform to be presented next month could regularise tens of thousands of migrants and cut waiting times for residency and work permits.
Amnesty International Spain welcomed Sánchez’s opposition to the Italy-Albania deal but highlighted the country’s inability to cope with the crisis in the Canaries, where migrant reception centres are saturated.
The failure of different parties to agree a redistribution of unaccompanied minors nationwide is a “dereliction of duty” attributable to an “unacceptable lack of political will”, spokesman Carlos de las Heras told AFP.
And while immigration remains “rather depoliticised” in comparison with other European countries, that may be changing as Vox and ultra-nationalist Catalan party Alianca Catalana focus on the issue, Garces said.