Spain’s junior coalition partner has called on the country to reconsider its role in hosting the 2030 World Cup alongside Morocco after the major migration crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

Sumar, a small left-wing party that shares power with the ruling Socialists, submitted a motion in the Spanish Parliament on Wednesday. In it, the party urged Spain’s sports authorities to review the plan to co-host the 2030 football tournament with Morocco and Portugal.

Although Sumar holds only 26 seats in the 350-member Parliament, it carries influence because it has ministers in Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government. Mr Sanchez has also come under criticism from other European Union members over the Ceuta crisis.

The motion is non-binding and is aimed at securing wider backing in Parliament, though for now that support looks unlikely beyond other small left-wing groups.

The demand for a review follows last week’s developments in Ceuta, where tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into the European enclave. Mr Sanchez has publicly defended the Moroccan authorities, saying they acted quickly to help return nearly all of the 72,000 people who crossed. Even so, Spain’s Interior Ministry says around 2,000 people, including 1,000 minors, are still in Ceuta.

Migrants rest as they wait on a beach.

Opposition leaders, and even Spain’s defence minister, have asked Morocco to provide a fuller explanation of its handling of the crisis, which was said to have been driven by social media posts encouraging people to cross the border. More than 80 people died last Thursday and Friday while trying to swim past a breakwater and border fence from Morocco into Ceuta.

Nahuel Gonzalez, a Sumar MP and co-author of the motion, accused Morocco of using migration as a political tool. “The Moroccan state, the Moroccan monarchy, does not respect human rights, it uses migrants to exercise political pressure,” Mr Gonzalez told Spanish broadcaster TVE.

Although Mr Gonzalez did not directly say whether Sumar wanted Morocco removed as a host or Spain to pull out of the tournament, he added: “We ask that Spain’s sports institutions reconsider this World Cup that is to be shared with Morocco because we believe that we must defend human rights.”

In Portugal, a small parliamentary party called Livre raised similar concerns in a letter sent to Prime Minister Luis Montenegro and the president of the Portuguese Football Federation. The letter urged a fresh review of the World Cup bid, calling it “unsustainable” after the Ceuta crisis.

Most of the 2030 World Cup is due to be hosted jointly by Spain, Morocco and Portugal, while Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay will each host one match. The South American role is meant to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Uruguay staging the first World Cup in 1930.