Spain's Interior Minister headed into a tense face-off with EU counterparts on Tuesday, as the bloc sought to draw lessons from an influx of migrants into Spain's North African enc…

Spain's Interior Minister headed into a tense face-off with EU counterparts on Tuesday, as the bloc sought to draw lessons from an influx of migrants into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta in hastily arranged video talks. The unprecedented sight of an estimated 50,000 people streaming into Ceuta from Morocco -- dozens died in the attempt and almost all have since left -- exposed the fault lines on migration among EU nations. Since images first emerged of the mass arrivals, most of whom swam around a barrier separating the enclave from Morocco, the Spanish government has found itself pitted against many of its EU partners. The bloc's interior ministers dialled in at 10:00 am (0800 GMT) for a videoconference that could provide a chance to look for common ground -- but looked equally likely to set the stage for a showdown. While Spain moved swiftly to send migrants back from Ceuta -- where it said an estimated 2,500 remained as of Monday -- the government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez backs a more open approach to migration than most of its EU counterparts. Countries pushing a harder line are led most vocally by Italy -- whose Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has attacked Madrid's stance, and specifically a recent push to grant legal status to undocumented migrants already in the country. Both Italy and Denmark last week advocated suspending Spain from the Schengen free-travel area over the Ceuta crisis -- a notion firmly rejected by Madrid, and which in any case is legally impossible under EU rules. In a letter to the heads of the EU's institutions Saturday, Sánchez accused fellow EU countries of having "selfish" attitudes and called for emergency talks to work on a "common response" to such incidents.