The European response to the #Ceuta crisis will go down in history as an own goal, an act of collective self-harm fuelling its worst enemies. Spain defended Europe’s external border. Instead of offering solidarity, Italy, Denmark and Finland sought to punish it and @vonderleyen failed to lead. Now, with the vast majority of arrivals already returned, Spain has shown the crisis could be managed (with Morocco). What if the real failure wasn’t border control, but European solidarity? Because if Europeans cannot count on one another when a Member State is under pressure at the Union’s external border, what confidence should they have that solidarity will prevail when the threat is military rather than migratory?