Spain is facing a "calling effect" that could trigger a wave of mass migration across the continent, after the Government moved to regularise the status of nearly a million illegal migrants.
In an interview with GB News, a Brussels-based Spanish analyst warned that the decision to grant working papers to those in the country illegally is a "perverted system" that prioritises foreign arrivals over native citizens.
With official figures suggesting the move affects upwards of 500,000 people, and independent studies placing the number as high as 840,000, critics argue the "slippery slope" has become a cliff edge.
European Conservative Javier Villamor told GB News: "More people would come. Because if they know that only being five months in Spain is enough to be considered a regular immigrant, they will come more.
"If they know that they will have a basic salary from the state, they will come more. If they know they don’t even need to speak our language, they will come more and they will come more and more and more. We just need to look at the data."
He added: "They were calling it an amnesty, maybe that’s too strong a word for now, but what they say is that most of these people are actually already working in Spain illegally, which is what surprises us most.
"The argument, they say, is that this is the only way to make these people work legally.
"So most of them are already working, and the Government says this is the only option to bring them into the system paying taxes and being part of everyday life.
Spain is facing a 'calling effect' that could trigger a wave of mass migration across the continent
|GB NEWS
"The official number is half a million. But according to other studies, the figure could increase to as many as 840,000 - almost a million.
"And we know how this works. It’s a slippery slope problem; in the future, the numbers will be much higher.
"This isn’t the first time it has happened. There have already been four large-scale regularisations since 1986.
"Three were carried out by the Socialists and one by the Christian Democrats, the traditional conservative parties such as the People’s Party, for example, which is now more centre-left."
LATEST ON THE MIGRANT CRISIS
Spain has announced plans to grant legal status to around 500,000 undocumented migrants | GETTYThe Spanish government approved the migrant amnesty through a royal decree, allowing the plan to move forward without a full parliamentary vote.
The measure allows undocumented migrants already living in Spain to apply for temporary residency permits that include the right to work legally.
According to Spain’s Migration Ministry, the policy applies to people who arrived before December 31, 2025, and can prove they have lived in the country for at least five months.
With new EU agreements potentially opening the door to over a billion more people from the subcontinent, Mr Villamor said: "You're paying people from abroad to work instead of paying your own people to work.
"You are giving education for free to people from abroad instead of your people, and so on and so on and so on. It's a waste of money.
"And the problem is that as we see the data for now, with all the data we have in our hands, immigration has not been what they told us that it was going to be.
"It's a mess. It's a problem."