The EU Council ministers for justice and home affairs will meet by video on Tuesday, Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin announced.
“We are in close contact with all member states and the institutions and continue to monitor the situation,” he wrote on X.
The announcement comes after Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and 21 other heads of state or government - including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz - called for a meeting in an open letter.
They expressed their “serious concern” and wrote that they are “determined to prevent smugglers from challenging the integrity of the EU’s external borders.”
Most have returned
The heads of state and government also called for a “coordinated European response” to support Spain in “restoring effective control of the Union’s external border.”
Around 50,000 people have crossed from Morocco to the small Spanish exclave of Ceuta on the North African Mediterranean coast in recent days, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.
Basically all migrants have since returned to Morocco, according to the ministry.
But at least 67 people have also been killed. Many died in the crush while trying to swim around a breakwater to the Spanish exclave.
On Saturday, Spain announced that a 500-meter-long floating barrier had been placed in the sea between Morocco and Ceuta to make border crossings more difficult. Police boats have been deployed to patrol the area.
“Selfish and polarizing”
Italy announced on Friday that it is suspending its Schengen agreement with Spain for a month, which means that free movement between the countries is halted.
Several European countries have previously suggested that Spain's membership in the Schengen area should be revoked.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in turn, criticised on Saturday the reaction of some EU countries to the crisis in Ceuta.
“In the current international situation, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarizing and illegal reactions,” he wrote in a letter to the leaders of the EU member states.
