The Government is beginning to lose patience as the political wear and tear over Ceuta increases. Ministers who are closely involved in managing the crisis caused by the presence in the city of about 10,000 of the 70,000 to 80,000 irregular immigrants who took part in the border jump on July 30 and 31 indicate that La Moncloa plans to relocate the irregular minors in Ceuta to the peninsula within a minimum period of two months by applying the current law — the royal decree law approved in April 2025 that establishes quotas for each territory in collapse situations like the one the North African city is suffering — if the PP continues with its “blockade.” The Minister of Territorial Policy and coordinator of the single command of the crisis, Ángel Víctor Torres, explained in the press conference following the Council of Ministers that this Monday, that is, in the seventh week since the outbreak of the crisis, the first 10 files of migrant minors had begun to be processed and estimated that between 700 and 1,000 were on the streets without registration.
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Another reason to move the minors out of Ceuta would be the lack of guarantees from Morocco to allow family reunifications. According to government sources, before the massive entry at the end of July, 600 files had been proposed since 2021, and Rabat had not responded to any. Pedro Sánchez defended last night on La Sexta the “intelligent” action of Mohamed VI’s regime in an interview in which he gave a deadline until “the end of the year to fix the situation in Ceuta.” However, those precedents make the Government already consider as the probable scenario forcing the PP barons to comply with the royal decree that establishes quotas for each territory. The PP presides over 11 autonomous communities besides Ceuta and Melilla and co-governs in Melilla.
The consulted ministers blame Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party for the lack of collaboration from the autonomies governed by the Populars to host on the peninsula part of the minors who entered in the avalanche. “We have worked with the horizon of relocating them and they will be relocated. The reluctance is from the PP,” government sources say, attributing the delay in the registration procedures to the PP’s “boycott,” as Óscar Puente has publicly expressed.
One of the members of the Council of Ministers attributes much of the slowness in responding to the political and social crisis in Ceuta to “the lack of collaboration” from Juan Jesús Vivas. The Popular leader, who has been at the head of the city for 25 years, is under enormous pressure according to the cited sources due to the “partisan interests” of Génova. The result, according to the consulted ministers, is that Vivas does not want to confront his party. Feijóo will visit Ceuta on Monday along with the president of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber. “Privately they say to take them out by force, they don’t want to confront the PP,” says a minister involved in resolving the crisis. The Government details that the possible formulas on the table are bilateral agreements with other communities, as has happened with the case of Navarra, which has received five minors. This is the fastest option. “We are working with other communities, not only from the PSOE. There are other mechanisms such as through entities or already through the royal decree law,” they add.
The Ministry of Youth and Childhood plans to convene a new sectoral meeting with the autonomous communities. The objective of the ministry, led by Sira Rego, from Sumar, is for the communities to participate voluntarily in the reception plan. If not, the Government would enforce compliance with the royal decree law.
The European Pact on Migration and Asylum (PEMA), which came into force in June to unify and reform the rules on border control, reception, and asylum in the European Union, would also be delaying the process, according to the consulted sources. The reason would be the tightening of Brussels’ migration plan, where, moreover, Pedro Sánchez’s progressive Government has lost much of its allies and is left in a minority situation.
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