The Government privately recognizes the extent to which The security of the Spanish border depends on keeping relations with Morocco intact. A prominent government source admits to LA RAZÓN that, if Spain stopped maintaining a good relationship with Rabat, “70,000 migrants a week” could enter Ceuta.
The statement has enormous political significance because it places Moroccan collaboration as the dam that separates border normality from permanent migratory pressure on Spanish territory and admits, de facto, Morocco’s ability to use the control of flows as a formidable tool of pressure on Madrid. Intelligence sources cited by El País warn that more hybrid attacks are likely to occur against both cities in the coming weeks..
The confession is even more significant because it occurs while Pedro Sánchez yesterday tried to remove any suspicion about the Alawite kingdom for what happened on July 30 and 31. The President of the Government closed ranks with Rabat and assured that neither the CNI nor the Security Forces and Corps handle any information that would allow the Moroccan authorities to be attributed a participation in the avalanche of more than 72,000 people who overflowed Ceuta.
“What does Morocco gain from these types of tactics?” Sánchez asked. The president defined immigration cooperation between both countries as “frankly positive” and directed suspicions towards other actors. Moncloa is investigating the spread of messages and hoaxes on social networks linked, according to Sánchez, to Russia and Israel and to a “far-right international” interested in using immigration to destabilize Spain and Europe. The Government rules out that Morocco caused the avalanche.
But he recognizes at the same time that preventing a similar avalanche from being repeated depends largely on Morocco. In any case, Moncloa admits the great vulnerability revealed by the national security reports: Spain can control its side of the borderbut a decisive part of the containment begins several meters before, in Moroccan territory.
This dependency also explains the extraordinary caution with which Moncloa has administered any accusation against Rabat throughout August. While the opposition has been toughening its discourse and some voices have recovered the word “blackmail”, the Executive has avoided holding Mohamed VI responsible for what happened. The head of the Executive also tried to settle the open battle within the Government –between Interior and Defense– on the notices that the State received before July 30.
Sánchez confirmed that the CNI held meetings with the Ceuta authorities and shared “situation reports” during the days before the mass entry, but reiterated that none of that information allowed us to anticipate what was about to happen. “No one predicted that we were going to have an avalanche of these characteristics,” he said, after weeks of cross-references about what each department knew and when they knew it.
Sánchez vindicated the actions of his Executive in the two autonomous cities and assured that no Government has done so much for Ceuta and Melilla, although he recognized the limits of the State’s preventive capacity in its two North African enclaves. Neither the deployment of means nor the reinforcement of security capabilitieshe essentially admitted, allow us to guarantee “one hundred percent” that a crisis of these characteristics cannot occur again.
The president explained that nine out of ten people who entered irregularly from Morocco during July 30 and 31 have already left the city, while around 5,000 still remain in Ceuta territory. Among them would be around 1,200 unaccompanied minors, one of the main fronts that remains open for the Executive. Sánchez added that, since August 10, some 3,200 people have returned voluntarily, in parallel to the returns managed by the Spanish authorities. In fact, Sánchez placed the return of minors to Morocco among the priorities of the new phase of the crisis.
The president assured that the Moroccan authorities have committed to “facilitating family reunification”, which would allow repatriations to begin when the parents themselves request the return of their children. “We will also be able to return the minors,” he stated, although he conditioned each return on the prior existence of that family request. The Government is walking on eggshells to try to put an end to a crisis that has focused all eyes on Rabat.