The minutes of two consecutive meetings attended by the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, with the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the ministers involved in the Ceuta crisis, clearly demonstrate that the leader of the autonomous city unequivocally supported the use of the port that he now rejects. The Government is outraged by this change of attitude, which Minister Óscar Puente has described as “sabotage” and which led him to take control of the port to install 1,000 immigrants there and be able to remove them from the streets.
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Vivas, who had already negotiated everything beforehand with the top official of the unified command, Minister Ángel Víctor Torres, attended on Monday by videoconference the meeting of the so-called situation committee, chaired by Sánchez. The main objective of the meeting was precisely to approve the use of the port. Vivas had accepted it beforehand after rejecting many other locations. But it had to be officially sanctioned.
The minutes of the meeting, which EL PAÍS has had access to, are very clear. After an introductory speech by Sánchez, in which he says that “it is essential to call for calm and tranquility and to avoid all kinds of violence. Solidarity must be shown and the distribution of food to the Red Cross allowed, avoiding episodes like those that occurred in recent days that have prevented food distribution for two days.” And he concludes: “Coexistence must be guaranteed and that means being able to temporarily relocate irregular migrants who are on the streets to agreed spaces.” Then Vivas takes the floor and, according to the minutes, “joins the president of the Government against the violent acts experienced in recent days, which he considers reprehensible, and which do not represent the peaceful and coexistence character of the city of Ceuta.” And he adds: “An indicative plan must be established with procedures depending on the available means and with a time horizon that allows relieving the existing pressure.”
From there, each minister details the progress on the issues that directly affect them, and the central point of the day is reached. Vivas had demanded the withdrawal of the decree from the previous week of several spaces that he flatly refuses to be used. Not only the sports centers, but also the flour factory or the military hospital. And the meeting sanctions that withdrawal. But in return, the president of Ceuta accepts the port. And the minutes reflect it: “The list of infrastructures is reviewed based on the latest evaluations of available spaces and their suitability and it is proposed to submit for report to the National Security Council a proposal to modify annexes I and II of Royal Decree 681/2026, of August 25, as follows:
- Include in Annex I the following spaces:
– Ministry of Defense lands at K8 Barracks
– Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility lands in two plots expansion of the west phase I of the Port of Ceuta
– Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda lands in Loma Colmenar D5 and E5. House 47”.
And here the minutes are clear: “The Functional Authority asks the attendees if they agree with the proposal and it is approved unanimously by the representatives’ vote.” That is, Vivas participates in the “unanimous vote” in favor of using the port.
“After finishing the agenda items without any additional contributions in the questions and requests section, the president of the Government intervenes to close the meeting, thanking the president of the City of Ceuta for the spirit of coexistence of the inhabitants of Ceuta who are not represented in the violent acts of recent days, thanks the effort made by all participants and their teams, and ends the meeting at 11:00 a.m.,” the minutes conclude.
But there was still the next day, the meeting of the National Security Council prior to the Council of Ministers in which the inclusion of the port in the new decree is definitively sanctioned. Vivas also participates in this meeting, again chaired by Sánchez. And according to the minutes, he again supports, like all the others, the use of the port. The Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, is responsible for making the proposal to modify the decree to include the port, and the Security Council, the minutes say, “agrees to issue a favorable report on the modification” of the decree to remove the facilities that Vivas rejected and include the port. There the secretary of the Security Council asks those present “if they have any observations to make on the minutes and, no observations being made, the minutes of the meeting are approved.” It was 9:30 on Tuesday and immediately afterwards the Council of Ministers began that would sanction those decisions agreed with Vivas. But on Friday, the Port Management Board, controlled by trusted people of Vivas, rejected by 11-4 the use of these facilities. Now the PP says it is a “critical infrastructure” and that it is a mistake to use it to house immigrants, something the Government has considered disloyalty that only tries to delay the location of migrants and, therefore, the resolution of the crisis.
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