Almost a month after the abrupt entry of 80,000 immigrants into Ceuta, normality has still not returned to the autonomous city. Amid the growing tension that has led to protests and clashes in recent days, the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, the top official of the unified command established by the Government, committed this Thursday to work to “shorten the deadlines” in the recovery of that lost normality in the territory. During his appearance before the Joint Commission on National Security, Torres called for the collaboration of the other groups and adopted the gravest tone against this week’s incidents.
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“Yesterday [the Ceuta president, Juan Jesús] Vivas and I agreed on an urgent message against violence. It would be good if everyone joined today. You cannot attack Ceutan Muslims just as you cannot attack an immigrant for being an immigrant. It cannot be that Red Cross volunteers, who are from Ceuta, feel threatened for delivering food on Trampolín beach and want to give up doing volunteer work. And, of course, it cannot be that communication professionals, who are also doing their job, are assaulted,” the minister denounced, detailing before the deputies the lines of action launched by the Executive since the unified command was approved, but he reiterated in his two interventions that he will not “deceive” anyone by saying that immigrants will be “returned tomorrow, because that is false” and requires more time, although the commitment to their return is also firm.
PP senator Cristina Díaz Moreno took advantage of her speaking turn to attack the Government for the lack, she considers, of “a plan” to tackle the crisis. “Ceuta does not need lessons in patience and coexistence. We have been giving the rest of Spain these kinds of lessons for decades. What we need is a Government that guarantees security, regains control, and returns normality to all Ceutans,” the parliamentarian listed, reproaching that they have allowed an “invasion” — a term that once again was questioned by Sumar deputy Txema Guijarro, who believes it does not fit the reality of what happened — to become a “crisis of coexistence security and public order,” and she demanded political responsibility from President Pedro Sánchez for this.
Much more measured, the PNV representative, Mikel Legarda, declared himself concerned about the search for spaces to accommodate immigrants, which he defined as “a crisis point.” The minister recounted that on Wednesday the first meeting of the situation committee was held and they visited several of the facilities proposed by the city. “It will take us months to use them: they lack sanitation, sewage, or electrical connection,” he argued.
Regarding the controversy around the use of sports centers, which Torres already ruled out yesterday after Vivas himself opposed the measure, this Thursday he defended that the royal decree was “flexible and modifiable,” “maximum,” and that cases like that were contemplated only for “extreme situations” that “were not foreseeable.”
“I wish you luck in this task as a functional authority,” began Francec-Marc Álvaro, from ERC, before reproaching Torres that in his case “the firefighter arrives late.” “Time has worked against decisions that should have been made earlier,” he pointed out, also blaming Sánchez as the top responsible.
Josep Pallès, deputy of Junts, insisted on the argumentative line wielded these days by Carles Puigdemont’s party, that Catalonia already hosts “much more than it should,” referring to immigrant minors. “We are not willing to make Catalonia have to cover with its few competences and resources the consequences of the incompetence, negligence, and irresponsibility of its Government,” he warned.
“Voting against the distribution of minors is not listening to Ceuta,” Torres had denounced in his first intervention, a message mainly towards the PP.
Vox deputy José María Sánchez used his speaking turn, not to address Torres, but to respond to the arguments that the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, had presented hours earlier in another previous session of the Commission. Thus, Sánchez called Bolaños’s references insults, who in his morning intervention had called him “fascist,” “racist,” and “cruel.” However, when criticizing him, Sánchez referred to Bolaños as “Trolaños,” “fool,” “arrogant,” “sick mind,” “disturbed,” and “mad.” Despite protests from some deputies, the Commission president, the popular Edurne Uriarte, appealed to his right to “freedom of expression.”
