Sánchez has not resolved the crisis in Ceuta but has exacerbated it

 “Another crisis resolved by Pedro Sánchez,” commented the Spanish Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, on social media on 1 August. It was the day after the invasion of Ceuta, the Spanish exclave on the African continent, when the vast majority of the 70,000–80,000 migrants from Morocco had been repatriated. Exactly one month on, that crisis has not been resolved, but has multiplied. It has evolved from a migration crisis into a health, humanitarian, social, political and institutional one. From the outset, the Spanish government underestimated a highly dangerous situation – one with a precedent in the 2021 migration crisis, which Morocco had used as a tool for political pressure – and subsequently handled it even more poorly. Two days ago, the president of the autonomous city of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, said he had alerted Madrid on Monday 27 July to the rise in arrivals and had received reassurances from Moncloa; he had asked the government on Tuesday to declare a state of emergency, only to be told on Wednesday that the conditions for doing so were not met: “On Thursday, the avalanche arrived.” The avalanche. The government, through the Home Secretary Marlaska, spoke of an “attack on Spain’s territorial integrity” but remained passive even afterwards, believing that everything would be resolved within a few days thanks to “excellent cooperation” with Morocco. Instead, the crisis festered, due to the presence of 5,000–7,000 migrants, many of them minors, in the city. Sánchez denied the problem existed, probably so as not to play into the hands of the anti-immigration right. And so he found himself having to play along, belatedly approving all, or almost all, of the measures the right had been calling for. On his return from a twenty-day holiday in the Canary Islands – during which social tensions erupted in Ceuta between exasperated locals and migrants wandering the streets or camping on the beach – Sánchez convened the National Security Council and declared, for the first time in Spain’s history, a state of “national security interest”. The government subsequently presented a reform tightening immigration laws, whilst the Health Minister dispatched 45,000 vaccines to prevent a health crisis.

The Spanish Attorney General’s Office has recorded 23 sexual assaults during the crisis in Ceuta, nine of which were against minors. Clashes between residents and migrants are a daily occurrence, with raids on camps in the streets or on the beaches and attacks on military vehicles. “Ceuta, a broken city”, read the headline in the progressive daily El País on Sunday, referring to “fear, a sense of abandonment and a lack of solutions” in a town now “on the brink of explosion”.

Having twice rejected Europe’s offer of assistance via Frontex (the border control agency) – once at the outbreak of the crisis and again in mid-August – Madrid wrote to the Commission on Saturday to request Frontex’s support. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Robles and Home Affairs Minister Marlaska have clashed, giving two conflicting accounts regarding the existence of an intelligence report that had warned of the risk of a migration crisis.

Yesterday, Sánchez gave a lengthy interview on the crisis in which he defended the government’s actions across the board, without a hint of self-criticism, offering accounts of events that were at times surreal. For example, regarding the conflicting accounts between Robles and Marlaska, he said they were ‘compatible’, because the intelligence reports did exist (as the Ministry of Defence claims) but did not foresee what happened (as the Ministry of the Interior claims). Regarding the controversy over his extended holiday in Lanzarote during the crisis, Sánchez asserted his right to a holiday: “I worked and I rested. It is my right.”

Even regarding responsibility for the crisis, Sánchez’s account appears false or, at the very least, incomplete. The Spanish Prime Minister blames ‘criminal organisations’ and the spread of fake news on social media by Russian and Israeli ‘networks’. Yet Morocco is not mentioned, even though, according to all observers, it facilitated the invasion or, at the very least, did nothing to prevent it. Rabat could not have been unaware of the situation or failed to realise what was happening. And yet, for Sánchez, the Moroccan authorities – who lay claim to Ceuta and Melilla – have been exemplary in their “cooperation”. If there is one government whose actions the socialist Prime Minister defends more than his own, it is Morocco’s. And if there is one king he attacks, it is not Mohammed VI of Morocco but Felipe VI of Spain: “In 20 years, how many times has the King visited Ceuta and Melilla?”, he said with a touch of venom. It is a pity that Juan Carlos’s son has been on the Spanish throne for 12 years and that, to visit Ceuta, he requires authorisation from Moncloa (which, so far, has been refused).

Sánchez’s version has not convinced anyone. Not even his allies on the radical left, who are calling on him to “overcome his Stockholm syndrome with the King of Morocco”. Let alone the voters. According to a poll published yesterday by El Mundo, almost two-thirds of Spaniards view the handling of the Ceuta crisis negatively: in voting intentions, the moderates of the PP and the right-wing Vox party hold a large majority, whilst the PSOE and its left-wing allies have lost 2.2 million votes compared to 2023. It will be difficult for Pedro Sánchez to resolve this crisis of image and support before the 2027 elections.

Luciano Capone