Pedro Sánchez completely exonerates Morocco from the Ceuta crisis, although he insists that he does so because he has no data indicating otherwise, and not out of fear of their reaction. In fact, Sánchez announced in a lengthy interview on Cadena SER that King Felipe VI will visit the autonomous city for the first time “as soon as conditions allow,” that is, under the coalition government’s mandate. The visit would represent a strong tension with Morocco, as was demonstrated the only time Juan Carlos I was there, during José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s term. Therefore, Sánchez’s announcement of this trip, still without a date, aims to prove that he is not soft on Morocco, because he is willing to do something that neither José María Aznar nor Mariano Rajoy did: authorize a trip to Ceuta and Melilla by the head of state, but at the same time Sánchez insists that behind this crisis is not Morocco, but social networks which, according to him, have been manipulated by Russia and Israel to weaken Spain.
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Sánchez has insisted that Morocco offered “instant, immediate cooperation” after the massive swimming entry of tens of thousands of migrants. The governments of both countries “were in constant communication on July 30 and 31, and on July 31 an operational deployment began by the Moroccan authorities,” he detailed. The president has defended the government’s management in Ceuta at all times, without self-criticism, and has closed off any possibility of criticism of Morocco because he insists that cooperation with this country is the key to resolving this crisis and any that may come. Sánchez has maintained that, without such harmony between the two countries, “the crisis would worsen” and explained that coordination with Rabat is underway for the “return of migrants once all the procedures required by law have been completed.”
In response to criticism in Ceuta that Sánchez has “abandoned” the city, the president detailed all the economic aid his government has deployed and recalled that he has officially visited the city four times, while Aznar and Rajoy never did ― the former only once as a candidate in the 2000 elections to give a rally and the latter in 2016 when he was acting ―. “I have been the sitting prime minister who has gone to Ceuta and Melilla the most,” he defended.
“I believe there are sufficient arguments and reasons for the head of state to finally visit, after 20 years, Ceuta and Melilla; that is what I have shared with the head of state and what will be done, but I also tell you it will be done when conditions allow,” the president assured. Sánchez referred to “20 years of reign” of Felipe VI when in reality it has been 12, since his proclamation in 2014.
“There are dangerous political speeches, increasingly common, in which it seems there is a contradiction between the strength of the state and respect for human dignity. The great democracies make those compatible. One can be strong in respect for the rule of law and, secondly, be aware that these are human beings who have rights,” the president defended, insisting on giving a humanitarian perspective to the crisis.
The role of the CNI
Sánchez wanted to emphasize that “no intelligence center with which the Spanish government usually collaborates raises any doubt about the participation in one way or another by the Moroccan authorities.” He added that “the CNI shared situation reports, as did the National Police,” but none anticipated the scale of what was coming. With this, he aligns more closely with the position held by the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, as opposed to that of the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, although he wanted to minimize the controversy by saying both are “compatible.”
And what happened for more than 70,000 people to enter the autonomous city in two days? Sánchez says that “a Supreme Court ruling was distorted and spread through social networks via misinformation hoaxes also from criminal organizations” and associated that wave of misinformation with Russia, Israel, and “an ultra-right international that always uses migration not only to attack Spain but also Europe and divide it.” The president thus exonerates Morocco and points to other governments.
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“There were Russian and Israeli networks that spread those hoaxes and attacked the Spanish government and Europeans on a corrosive issue like irregular migration that divides and polarizes many European societies,” he said. Sánchez explained that in those social media messages the Supreme Court ruling was distorted implying that “if one entered by swimming, for example, in the autonomous city of Ceuta, return at the border was impossible, which is not true.” “In any case — the president pointed out — this type of hoax was used and spread through social networks. This is what we know.”
The ‘penthouse’, the elections, and Zapatero
The Ceuta crisis dominated most of the interview, but the president changed tone and was much more comfortable when questions turned to the controversy over the penthouse that the Community of Madrid bought for 6.3 million euros, which according to him was for President Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “What it seems is that this lady wanted to buy herself a penthouse with the money of the Madrilenians to live in it and she was caught.” “A penthouse with the money of the Madrilenians and without applying the housing law, because what the lady needs is a large apartment of 400 square meters and 200 of terrace,” he mocked.
The president toyed with the idea of the election date and did not want to clarify whether they will be before or after the regional and municipal elections in May 2027. The only certainty is that they will be in 2027. “My intention is to complete the legislature,” he insisted. “The budgets will substantiate their debate in 2026, will be presented in 2026, and there will be elections in 2027,” he previewed to confirm that he will run as a candidate “with the same enthusiasm as in 2019.” Sánchez believes his project is essential “to stop a reactionary wave” that only brings regression. In his opinion, with the alliance of the PP and Vox and the shift to the right of the Populars, “we are not talking about alternation in this case, we are talking about a regression that has been seen in other parts of the world and that I, certainly, will fight tooth and nail so that it does not happen in our country.”
Sánchez played with the election date. “If you ask me ‘will it be on such a day in July?’, well, then we enter a territory where, indeed, there may be technical advances or not.” The president showed his anger with those in his party who say the general elections must be before the municipal ones, to avoid a blow like in 2023. “What happens is that those voices, which by the way are quite minority, overlook something important. And that is that in the general elections, the PSOE got a better result than in the municipal and regional elections,” Sánchez defended himself. “This calls into question some of these arguments used by these dear colleagues,” he concluded ironically.
Near the end of the interview, the president defended Zapatero from the accusations for which he remains under investigation in the National Court for alleged influence peddling: “There is a legacy, a trajectory, that makes us have to defend his presumption of innocence more than ever.” He based his support on the argument that there is “a very large majority” of former prime ministers who engage in lobbying. At the same time, he closed ranks against a possible indictment of the PSOE in the case investigating the party’s accounts: “An indictment is not a conviction.”
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