The Popular Party has found in the Ceuta crisis a new opportunity to call for elections, as it also did before the summer, while tension in the autonomous city grows on the brink of social unrest. The PP spokesperson, Borja Sémper, demanded this Thursday that the Government dissolve the Cortes and “give the floor to the Spanish people” arguing that “the Ceuta crisis is out of control.” “This Government went on vacation at an extraordinarily complicated moment,” reflected the PP deputy, but “the back-to-school period for the Government is even more terrible,” he defended. “The Cortes must be dissolved and the floor given to the Spanish people. If it was important before the summer, after what we are seeing in Ceuta it is fundamental,” he urged. The popular spokesperson avoided explicitly condemning the attempted attacks on immigrants in the autonomous city and asked “not to point fingers at people.”
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The PP claims to be “devastated and worried” about the “attitude” of the ministers in the appearances this week in Congress to report on the Ceuta crisis, in which PP leaders have gone all out against the Government. Génova, which wants to make the most of the massive influx of immigrants to the autonomous city on July 30, has placed the popular deputy secretaries, instead of the parliamentary spokespeople (with the exception of the group spokesperson, Ester Muñoz), to confront the ministers, seeking to give the clashes the highest level.
While the appearances continued behind closed doors, the PP spokesperson accused the ministers in the Congress courtyard of “arrogance” and “absolute lack of humility” in their explanations. And he reiterated the PP’s position that “all those who entered must return to Morocco, no matter their age.” The PP also accuses the Government of “persistently lying about what it knows Morocco is doing.” “Does anyone believe that 80,000 people can enter our country and the country of origin does not know?” the popular spokesperson challenged, after the clash between the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, and the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, about whether the CNI had informed or not about the massive jump on July 30.
The PP has also avoided explicitly condemning the attempted attacks on immigrants in Ceuta, after the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, urged the rest of the political forces to call for calm due to the growing social tension. On Wednesday night, the National Police had to prevent with tear gas a demonstration from reaching El Trampolín beach, where thousands of migrants have camped every night for almost a month. That same early morning a group of migrants attacked an Army patrol, an incident that ended with 12 Moroccans arrested and four soldiers slightly injured.
Asked whether the PP is concerned that Ceuta citizens might take justice into their own hands, Sémper answered: “What worries us is that people in Ceuta are desperate. What worries us is that many people believe the State is not responding to them, that the feeling that the authorities and the public service, and therefore the State, are incapable of solving the crises they face is taking hold. This is what is truly worrying. People should not be pointed at. Those who govern should be pointed at.”
The popular spokesperson was asked again about the incidents at El Trampolín beach and responded that “of course,” the PP “is always against violence.” Immediately after, he added: “Above all, we are against, and it is compatible, an incapable and ineffective Government. And we are very worried that Ceuta citizens feel unprotected. The State Security Forces and Corps must have resources and the Army must be able to act, something it cannot do under current conditions.”
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