One day after the declassification of the Spanish intelligence services’ reports on the jump to Ceuta, and after the approval in Congress of the nationality law for the Sahrawis was confirmed, Morocco has once again spoken openly about the crisis with an exculpatory message and a future warning to parties with historical government experience, in a not-so-veiled allusion to the Popular Party.
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In an unusually forceful statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rabat referred to the incursion of more than 70,000 migrants from Morocco to Ceuta on July 30 and 31 as “regrettable events” and rejected the “accusations” of the alleged responsibility of the Maghreb country in the massive violation of the Spanish border. The diplomatic document states that “no data, fact or report establishes any involvement of the Moroccan authorities.”
The first explicit official message in more than a month from one of the sovereignty ministries directly linked to the Royal Palace, Morocco considers it “especially regrettable that historic parties — despite their extensive experience in government management — have fallen into this quagmire where irrational and populist escalation prevails over common sense.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs simultaneously criticizes that “certain Spanish political and media sectors persist in instrumentalizing” Morocco “within the framework of an internal agenda.” The statement emphasizes that “the Kingdom of Morocco refuses to become an electoral resource” for internal disputes in Spain and “also does not accept being the scapegoat for political score-settling.”
Coinciding with the start of the campaign for the legislative elections on the 23rd in Morocco, in which the issue of Ceuta and Melilla is waved as a nationalist rallying banner by the parties, the Foreign Ministry’s statement reflects the discomfort of the Rabat government over the declassification of the Spanish intelligence reports. All the reports contain reproaches to the Moroccan authorities and their security forces for apparently failing to stop the avalanche of tens of thousands of young people who overwhelmed the Ceuta breakwater of Tarajal in just over 24 hours.
Rabat returns the incriminating ball to drop it on Spanish political ground, which it already places in “electoral eve.” The diplomatic response also includes “prestigious” legislative institutions [the debates in Congress] and judicial institutions [the investigation opened in the National Court] to which it attributes “errors through misguided initiatives that generate discord.”
“Discernment is overshadowed by excessive simplification and objective analysis by accusatory rhetoric,” the note emphasizes, in a discourse closer to political fervor than diplomatic moderation. “They feed a strategy of fear that harms everyone,” it warns in a message that links to the concern of Moroccan civil society about the treatment given to the thousands of irregular migrants who have remained in Ceuta for more than a month. It also alludes to a possible concern about the situation of a diaspora of around one million people of Moroccan origin settled in Spain.
Morocco highlights in the statement the good bilateral relations established since 2022, after President Pedro Sánchez’s turn in favor of Rabat’s autonomy plan as a solution to the Western Sahara dispute, reflected in a “continuous dialogue” translated into “tangible results.” It expressly cites advances in economic matters, with Spain as the North African country’s main trading partner; in security, in the fight against jihadist terrorism and drug trafficking; and in controlling migratory flows.
