1.17 million Spanish residency bids face CJEU

More than 1.17 million people applied to regularise their immigration status in Spain before the window closed in late June, more than double the government's initial estimate (Crónica Global, The Guardian). No EU member state has attempted labour regularisation at this scale in years. The Spanish Supreme Court is now considering whether to ask the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU, the bloc's highest court) to rule on whether the programme is compatible with EU law (El Español). If the CJEU takes the case, its answer would bind every member state and shape how far any government can go in legalising irregular workers while neighbours build their politics around tougher removals.

One clause, two readings

The dispute turns on a single provision of the EU's Return Directive (the 2008 law setting common rules for removing people without legal status). Article 6(1) says governments "shall issue a return decision" to anyone staying irregularly. Article 6(4) allows a member state to grant residence for "compassionate, humanitarian or other reasons" and skip the removal order. The Commission's own Return Handbook says a country "may at any moment" grant a residence permit to an irregularly staying person (Directive 2008/115/EC, Commission Return Handbook).

Spain's government reads that as clear legal room. Opponents argue Article 6(4) is a safety valve for individual cases, not a licence for over a million people. If the Supreme Court sends a preliminary reference (the procedure by which a national court asks the CJEU to interpret EU law), the ruling would set the clause's boundaries for every member state (El Debate).

Europe reads the same story through different fears

Germany treated the programme mostly as a labour story. Coverage focused on Spain's attempt to bring shadow-economy workers in construction, agriculture and domestic care into taxable, insured employment (taz).

German reporting was careful to distinguish what a Spanish permit actually grants. Under Schengen rules, a Spanish residence card allows short-stay travel of up to 90 days elsewhere in the border-free zone but does not open another country's labour market (FAZ, Schengen Convention, Art. 21). Austria would not immediately have to let these workers in.

Austria's FPÖ (the far-right Freedom Party, now leading the coalition) drew the opposite conclusion anyway, calling Spain's scheme a "Schengen free ticket" and an "asylum magnet" (Krone). The framing compresses pull factors, onward movement and returns credibility into a single alarm. The concrete legal exposure is thin: fuller mobility rights come only after years of continuous residence under the EU's long-term residence directive, not from a first one-year Spanish permit.

Italy absorbed Spain into its own enforcement debate. Interior Minister Piantedosi has framed the EU's Migration and Asylum Pact (the 2024 package overhauling how Europe handles asylum claims and returns) as a shift toward stricter enforcement (Avvenire). From Rome, Spain's regularisation looks like the counter-model.

Catalonia carries the administrative weight

The numbers land hardest in Catalonia. The region received more than 257,000 applications, the highest of any autonomous community, with Barcelona province alone accounting for over 192,000 (Crónica Global). Lawyers in Barcelona warn that appointment scarcity at immigration offices is the main collapse risk.

Portugal shows what happens when administrative capacity cannot keep pace. Its own regularisation drive formalised hundreds of thousands of people, but backlogs left many without valid documents for months. According to ECO, over 162,000 foreign workers dropped off social-security rolls in 2025 without returning to active registration. Regularisation can formalise real work, but only if the state converts applications into usable status fast enough to prevent a new form of limbo.

The legal question before the CJEU would be narrow: does Article 6(4) allow mass regularisation, or only case-by-case exceptions? The political question is wider. Spain is testing whether a major EU member state can legalise irregular labour at scale while its neighbours invest political capital in removals. The first ruling may come from judges. The first failure, if it comes, will show up in appointment queues.