The Government calls it a migration crisis.
Migration crisis means simplifying it greatly and, above all, assuming the cost of poor immigration management. I think the biggest mistake the Government has made is internalizing this crisis. It is putting the focus on what the extreme right wants, which is to blame those who have migrated and not a State, which is the one that caused this. I am not naïve, I love diplomacy and foreign policy and I understand that one can be cautious, but, in this case, I think the mortgage is so big that it is not worth it. We must point out from the first moment, Europeanize the crisis, because we are within the framework of the European Union for a reason. I understand that it could not be said on the first day, but Morocco already did it in 2021, with the entry of 10,000 people. It is true that Morocco claimed it then, but this time it has gotten so out of hand that it is not going to claim the murder of 141 people and the extraordinary entry of 80,000. Therefore, treating it as an immigration issue is pointing fingers at yourself and saying that you are mismanaging the borders.
In the three years she has been a deputy, she has never been shy about criticizing the PSOE, which she has come to describe as "Morocco's best lobby in Spain." What problem could the PSOE have with Morocco?
Morocco is a country that has a very great lobbying capacity, not only with the PSOE, but also with certain people from the PP and, above all, in the European Parliament. It is a very rich country, although inequality is enormous and 70% of the population lives in poverty because all that wealth is capitalized by an elite, an elite that studies in French and Spanish universities and that is infiltrated in the media and spaces of power. Now, socialist wills have been bought since Felipe González. They have exercised very important soft power with tourism and with the entry into economic agreements, also with the Canary Islands and other autonomies. Javier Otazu says it very well: 'Morocco knows us a lot and we know it very little.' First, because the protectorate of Morocco or colonialism in Western Sahara is not explained to Spanish citizens. So, when you know very little about your neighbor, but your neighbor does invest a lot in knowing how you function... They have instrumentalized this [the massive entry] to establish this debate about Ceuta and Melilla because they know that the migration issue at the European level sustains serious debates and is a divisive element, even within the left's own electorate. The PSOE has inherited all those transfers and purchases of wills. And the last to fall, and I think that is why Rabat also feels immune to doing this, has been Zapatero.
In what sense?
When I pointed out the influence that Zapatero had in Latin America, in the lobby, in his whitewashing of Rabat and his entry into the socialist international, it was always said: 'They are the resentful Sahrawis, what are the Sahrawis going to say?' And I pointed it out as a Spaniard and said: Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero has business and exercises a lobby on behalf of Morocco that is so shady that it is what has made the shift with respect to the Sahara possible. In some way, Sánchez inherits that thinking that it will have little electoral cost, but we are seeing that it may have a broader sovereignty cost, not only in the Sahara, but with Ceuta. The Ceuta crisis highlights that you cannot be very courageous discursively with Trump and Netanyahu, but not point to their test tube, their puppet, which is Rabat. The PSOE has made a mistake by not pointing out Morocco, first, because it has lost a very good electoral capital, but also a capital of dispute, because issues of sovereignty tend to unite people a lot. Spain is the fourth European economy, it emits gas to Morocco, it is its gateway to economic agreements in the European Union, it has a currency exchange... We have the capacity to think of a deterrent plan, but instead we are defending Morocco's interests in the European courts, in the agreements, in the autonomies.
Could what happened a month ago have happened with a PP Government?
Yes, 100%, as long as the PP had generated a certain aversion to the United States. I say it knowingly: the United States has a need for strait control and we are seeing it with Hormuz. Also with the change of status of Gibraltar. The PP has always had more relations with the Istiqlal Party, which is like an independence party, from which comes the theses of Greater Morocco, of Ceuta, Melilla, the Sahara... The only thing that the Moroccan Crown appropriated those theses. In any case, the PP will always be more submissive to the United States and Israel, so it will never do anything that bothers these two actors. It is true that relations have always been tense, but due to supremacy towards Morocco. What does not change is that Ceuta and Melilla are a mandate of the Alawite dynasty, so it could happen to absolutely anyone.
The National Police points directly to Morocco as the planner and executor of the massive entry a month ago. What should the Government do if it is confirmed?
I understand, as a data engineer, that a government cannot be moved by emotions, but by reports and reliable evidence, but if it is shown that it is not only responsible for passivity, but is also the executing element, we have to call our ambassador for consultations. It is the historic moment, just as we had in '76 to defend Western Sahara, for the Government to make a shift to point to Morocco. And if there has to be a diplomatic conflict, let there be one. It also has to Europeanize the management, tell Europe: "We have been there when Greenland was claimed, in the Lesbos crisis, in Lampedusa... We have not left them [the affected European countries] alone."
Would such a confirmation merit the resignation or dismissal of the Interior Minister?
As a defender of human rights, the Minister of the Interior should have resigned with the death of dozens of immigrants in Melilla in 2022. But I will tell you why he should not resign now, and not because he has changed his point of view: the entry of Brahim Gali in Spain already cost us a minister [Arancha González Laya]. Morocco asked the Government to stop it. We are in a democracy and we must demand responsibilities, but for people from the Government to resign is to agree with Morocco, it is what Morocco is looking for and it is what they are looking for from outside. They can say: "I have brought in 80,000 people and I have killed a Minister of the Interior", Minister of the Interior who, on the other hand, decorated a year ago the top Moroccan intelligence official [Abdellatif Hammouchi]. The cost for the Government is already latent, resignations are not going to fix it.
How would you rate the Government's management in the last month?
For me it has been disastrous. The Government has been 100% wrong. Disastrous not because we do not have the capacity, we have it. We are a country that is not only supportive, but also has the capacity. We did it with Ukraine, we did it with the La Palma volcano, the coronavirus, the hantavirus... This Government has been hit by the seven plagues of Egypt, it has had to face very complicated situations. And I was surprised that with this management it has not been possible. There has been a failure of leadership, of sole command, from the beginning. Now, the biggest challenge is the credibility and transparency of the information so as not to feed the extreme right and continue to release whatever they want. And the next challenge is the distribution of migrants in all communities to expedite the files, so that those governed by the PP accept it, because that divisive element is what they need from the outside. They are seeing what the government's weak point is, they are seeing what the PP's weak point is, and a state party has to live up to it.
Is it difficult to find the balance between empathy with the people of Ceuta and the dignified treatment of a wave of people, most of them in need, but whose presence has disrupted the daily lives of citizens like never before?
Human beings are born with empathy and it is very easy to understand one reality and the other. A Ceutí who sees that it is managed, that there is presence, that there is command and, above all, that there is a distribution, of course he will have empathy. Let's think that they are almost brother towns [Morocco and Ceuta]. The problem is when there is competition for public resources. Our debate as progressives has to be about the conquest of public resources. But this is like when you leave someone without sleep for many days: the worst demons inside them come out. Let's not let these demons continue to surface and, above all, let them have someone at their side misinforming and stoking those fears.
This week the processing of the law for the granting of Spanish nationality to the Sahrawis reaches its final point with the vote on the opinion in Congress. What do you expect from the debate?
This law has also passed the seven plagues (laughs). It has been a very complex process and has involved personal and emotional exhaustion that I would not wish on anyone. There have been many changes: thanks to Vox and the PP, it was admitted for processing. Then the PP and Vox voted against in the presentation and, finally, the PP abstained in committee. In this time I have spoken with Vox, I spoke at the time with Cuca Gamarra, from the PP, I have spoken in Catalan with Junts... It cannot be said that with this law we have not spoken with everyone. I only ask the PP not to abandon us now, since it has supported the Sahrawi people throughout the last legislature and this legislature, this law is important, it is necessary. Nobody would understand an abstention or a vote against. From the debate I expect a little of everything, I expect instrumentalization. I'm afraid... But I want to thank all the good people in all the parties for their work, because the PP's abstention has been achieved by good people within the party and the PSOE's yes has been thanks to the president [of Congress] Francina Armengol.
What arguments have you been given by the Popular Party for such substantial changes in position over three years?
The moment of voting coincided with the extraordinary regularization, from which the Sahrawi people were left out. Shortly after, Núñez Feijóo screwed up with the Grandchildren Law... I think the reason was timing. I told them that the Sahrawi people cannot pay the price of all the laws that have come out of Democratic Memory in which they should have been included: we have given nationality to a lot of Argentines for being grandchildren of Spaniards, to the Sephardim... Vox, the same. He does not want any immigration measure, but this is not a migration measure, it is a restorative memory measure. We are not going to give nationality to the Sahrawis, we are going to equalize their rights as the people of Latin America and ensure that they do not have to spend 14 years in legal limbo in our country. We owe it to them. And seeing what happened in Ceuta, I hope you are aware of the political importance that this law has for the Popular Party and, although much to my regret, for your own electorate.
Those seven plagues that you mention that the law has suffered have also been motivated by a blockade by the PSOE that you have denounced on several occasions. Why do you think they have done it?
In the PSOE, the word Sahrawi generates terrible panic. I don't understand it, well, it can be understood now with the events in Ceuta... The fact of excluding them from the extraordinary regularization is a deliberate policy against them, a policy instigated from Foreign Affairs so as not to bother Morocco. When the phase of law amendments closed, I was very surprised, because the PSOE proposals substantially improved the norm, but then they blocked it... It's like trying to solve a Gaussian bell. They have been running out of the few arguments they had. I think that the PSOE mistakenly thinks that it can lead to an emptying of the refugee camps, but we are not going to grant nationality to the Sahrawis.
The context is what it is. Do you see the PSOE capable of changing its position at the last moment in light of what happened in Ceuta?
In this legislature and with the PSOE, I expect anything, anything. It would be very strange, but then we would understand how much the law has had to do with the Ceuta crisis. And, as a space, we would obviously have to rethink our presence in the Government. The law is crucial in a geopolitical context, it is not a mere law, and I understand that it does not affect many Spaniards, but it generates a unanimous feeling among them regardless of the political spectrum.
In view of precedents, can we expect possible reprisals from Morocco if the law goes ahead?
Look, one of the great disadvantages we have with our neighboring country, or even with African countries in general, is that they usually speak, due to the colonial heritage, our language, but we do not speak theirs. Well, recently one of the great advisors of the monarchy referred to the norm, to the ruling of the Supreme Court, but also to the norm, as an affront by Spain to its sovereignty, because they consider the Sahrawis Moroccans. If they execute it [another massive entry], we will have to be even more proud of having voted in favor. This law is an important element of sovereignty for the Spanish Parliament, which can approve whatever it wants without the neighboring country having to interfere.
Have you never encountered personal and political contradictions in that your space supports in the Government a PSOE that has unilaterally changed Spain's historical position with respect to the Sahara and is, in your words, the best lobby in Morocco?
I have had them since minutes before Pedro Sánchez's inauguration. I had a clear internal debate when thinking about whether to support it or not, but it is also true that within that debate it was important who voted for me, and what can be done by and for the Sahrawi people. I am aware of the strength I have and how far it reaches, and the strength I have is that of a vote. I can assure you that that vote and that voice have been used to push both my own space and the Government to the limits.
In view of the scandals surrounding the PSOE, the judicial horizon that awaits it and what happened in Ceuta, do you see the legislature already exhausted?
It is a very complex legislature, and I think that after the amnesty was approved we should have gone for housing. Due to the halo of corruption, progress has been made in many small things. The dependency law has been achieved, the ELA law... Many things have been achieved, but, due to this crisis of sovereignty and corruption within the PSOE, this final stretch is very complicated. Everything will depend on how the Government of
