The images of thousands of migrants reaching the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in North Africa in late July jolted the European Union, already dozing on its month-long summer break, into action.

The bloc's EU ambassadors were called back from their vacations for an online meeting on August 3 to prepare for another online meeting of the club's 27 interior ministers the following day. By then, the crisis had already been largely averted, as Spain, initially heavily criticized by other member states, had called in reinforcements and said it had already turned back nearly 70,000 out of the 72,000 people that made it into Ceuta. Nearly 90 people died in the chaotic conditions that overwhelmed the Spanish coastguard.

None of the migrants are thought to have made it into mainland Europe. While Ceuta, together with its sister exclave Melilla, are officially part of the EU's passport free Schengen zone, the pair are under special rules that stipulates that identity checks must be carried out when departing there to destinations in continental Europe, making it nearly impossible to make it onto the ferries crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.

So what or who was behind the huge influx of migrants? In their joint statement issued after their early August meeting, the bloc's interior ministers laid the blame on "migrant smuggling networks" and also hinted that the EU needs to improve "shared situational awareness, which could be achieved by further developing early-warning systems such as pre-frontier intelligence and social media monitoring." Before the migrants began arriving in Ceuta, rumors spread online that Spain would welcome people with open arms.

Looking for a cause, some European politicians highlighted both a decision by Madrid to regularize migrants and a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling. The former, the legal status scheme, however, largely catered to Spain's Latin American labor migrants and applied to people who could show proof of residency for five consecutive months before the start of this year.

And the second suggested cause of the influx was a highly technical court ruling from early July that stipulated that Madrid's immediate-return procedure of migrants did not apply to people intercepted while attempting to swim from the territory of Morocco to Ceuta and Melilla. According to the ruling, it only applied if the migrants breached a physical barrier, meaning that those attempting to swim would go through a much a slower legal process instead of being sent back immediately. The court ruling, however, barely made news in Spain when it was issued on July 8.

So what then was the pull factor? While smuggling networks so far seems to be the preferred official answer in Brussels, some European officials have wondered, at least privately, about Morocco's role in the process. (They are also quick to point out that Spain openly and repeatedly says both in public and behind closed doors that Rabat has nothing to do with it and that the country has been very helpful when it comes to returning the migrants.)

The relationship between Morocco and Spain is a delicate one. In 2021, Morocco allowed 8,000 migrants to reach the two Spanish exclaves after Madrid allowed the leader of a Western Sahara independence movement to receive medical treatment in the country. Western Sahara belonged to Spain up until 1975, but Morocco claims the territory and de facto controls most of it. While Madrid previously held the position that a UN-sponsored referendum should settle the status, the country U-turned after the 2021 migrant crisis by stating that Western Sahara should be an autonomous territory under Rabat's control.

Some observers have said that Morocco took exception to Spain's move earlier in July to improve political relations with Algeria -- one of Rabat's big regional rivals that is pushing for West Saharan independence.

With Spain -- and by extension, the EU -- reluctant to point fingers at Morocco, the interior ministers' joint statement ended on an intriguing note: "communication during moments of crisis could further be reinforced through timely coordination and should be more coherent, especially to counter malicious external actors engaged in foreign information manipulation and interference."