Spanish airport under consideration for new migrant arrival centre

The Spanish government is considering setting up an emergency reception centre for migrants at Ciudad Real airport located south of Madrid.

According to Spain’s Minister of Education and Science Pilar Alegria, politicians are exploring “hundreds” of locations.

Private airport Ciudad Real serves as a potential site to offer temporary care to those arriving on the Spanish coast.

The airport comprises of a 24,000 square metre terminal building and a 4,000-metre-long runway. It opened its doors in 2008 and declared bankruptcy four years later and since then has intermittently hosted private flights.

Emiliano Garcia-Page, president of Castilla-La Mancha, the autonomous community in Spain where the airport is located, has said that he is unaware of the proposal.

Ciudad Real Mayor Francisco Cañizar described the proposal as a “concentration camp,” arguing that it would fail to provide the “minimum humanitarian conditions” needed to accommodate arrivals.

UN Refugee Agency data shows that around 43,000 people arrived in Spain over the past year, with roughly 70% landing in the Canary Islands, which is bearing the brunt of the country’s immigration influx.

The news comes as migration takes center stage at a high-level summit in Brussels this week, where European Union leaders are set to discuss the bloc’s approach to managing irregular arrivals in the future.

The discussion is expected to be contentious, as countries like the Netherlands and Poland have voiced a desire to restrict certain immigrant arrivals.

The announcement coincides with the opening of the offshore migrant processing center in Albania, which has begun processing its first group of migrants rescued at sea by Italian ships.