Ángel Víctor Torres defends the temporary installation of tents for migrants in Ceuta

The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, explained this Sunday that the tents installed this weekend in the port of Ceuta to welcome immigrants who illegally entered the autonomous city at the end of last July are "temporary", and has requested the consensus of all parties on the issue.

Interviewed on TVE's Channel 24 Hours, Torres expressed: "The tents are temporary, they are huts that are going to be dismantled and therefore they are not meant to stay in Ceuta. They are being put up so that they can be returned because the sooner we file them, the sooner they can be returned. Therefore, if what we want is to remove them from the beaches and so that they can be returned, we have to bring those locations."

The minister maintains that the plots of the port and those in the La Reina area were included in a royal decree approved "unanimously" in the National Security Council and the Situation Committee, with the presence of the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, and members of his Government.

On the other hand, Torres has claimed that when the works were underway, the Board of Directors of the Port of Ceuta transferred technical reports contrary to its location.

"If we do not want the military hospital to be used, because the neighbors do not want it, we take it out of the decree. If we do not want the sports centers, some of which were used in 2021, because the neighbors do not want it. If we do not want the Fiscer barracks because the neighbors do not want it, or the flour factory, because the neighbors do not want it, then tell us where there are spaces so that we can do it with the approval of everyone. If not it is impossible, because you cannot criticize that they are on the beaches, that they are sleeping on the sidewalks of the Prince, and at the same time it is criticized that spaces are opened based on consensus," Torres said.

According to Torres, these types of decisions are those adopted by "all" Spanish governments in similar situations and he has reiterated that migrants cannot be returned "overnight."

"It is very easy to say what you don't want, but you have to look for alternatives, and we have put them here. It is very important that this can be completed," Torres said in statements to public television.

According to the minister, the Government is carrying out "permanent monitoring" and conversations "practically every day" with President Vivas, and has defended that the Government will continue to seek maximum consensus, although it has warned that it will have to make "decisions with the law in hand" to normalize the situation.

Torres maintains that the Executive's desire is for the current situation to become "chronic" and has asked for the collaboration of all administrations: "We all have responsibilities here," he said.

"We do everything to achieve normality. If we all collaborate, if we don't put a spanner in the works, everything will be much simpler and we will shorten the deadlines," said the minister, who has not been able to predict when normality will return exactly: "In very few weeks," he said.

Yes, the minister has specified the number of immigrant minors still present in Ceuta, which he has estimated between 1,500 and 1,600, already affiliated, although the final data will not be known until Tuesday.

Precisely on the issue of minors, Torres recalled that this is a responsibility of the autonomous communities and that the central government is working to facilitate their family reunification and their relocation to other communities.

Here Torres has taken the opportunity to accuse the PP and Vox of having voted against the modification of the royal decree-law that allowed minors to be transferred from Ceuta to the rest of Spain: "There they turned their back on Ceuta," says Torres, who maintains that "all possibilities are open" to accelerate the transfers within the legal margins.

Torres has also spoken about the future visit of King Felipe VI to the autonomous city and has said that it will take place "in the coming weeks", when he believes that the situation is "notably better" than the current one.

Regarding the origins of the massive entry and the possible role of Morocco in it, Torres has replicated the version that President Sánchez gave this week in Congress: he has said that there is no evidence of Rabat's influence on the event.

In any case, Torres has stated that if evidence appears, the Executive will act "accordingly" to it, but has demanded "rigor" and that no action be taken on the basis of "conjectures" or "indications" when it comes to issues related to national security and relations with a neighboring country.

"What is required of a Prime Minister is rigor," defended Torres, who has criticized those who, in his opinion, raise an international conflict based on "evidence and conjecture."

Finally, he has also referred to the reports in the possession of Judge María Tardón on the events that occurred during the massive arrival of immigrants. Torres has avoided evaluating the judicial action and has assured that he "absolutely" respects the separation of powers.

The minister maintains that the Government already had its own reports prepared before, during and after the events and has explained that the report requested by the judge was prepared without prior knowledge of the Executive and delivered at the end of August.