Stocks of fabric with the colors of the Spanish flag ran out in different establishments in Ceuta and Melilla at the beginning of November 2007, after it was announced that Juan Carlos I, now King Emeritus, and Doña Sofía were going to visit the two autonomous cities. Classes were suspended and the workday of officials and merchants was shortened. Everything so that almost a third of the population of these towns took to the streets, red and yellow in hand, to receive the monarchs with proclamations of "Es-pa-ña!, Es-pa-ña!" and "Oé, oé, oé."
"I believe that there has never been a visit by their majesties the Kings to a city where they have been received by so many citizens," recalls Miguel Marín, then and now advisor to the Government of Melilla. "I want [...] to express to you the firm support and permanent encouragement of the Crown," responded Don Juan Carlos in this city on November 6, with a message similar to the one he had addressed to the people of Ceuta the day before. That speech by the King and those streets dyed red and yellow, governed by those who follow -Juan Jesús Vivas in Ceuta and Juan José Imbroda in Melilla-, are the only precedent in democracy to what will happen today: the visit of Felipe VI to the two cities.
That ode to Spanishness is, therefore, the only image to which the King can refer to intuit how his trip will unfold. But, in addition to gauging the reaction of the street, the precedent of Juan Carlos I also allows us to anticipate the political repercussion that this gesture may trigger, that of the head of state stepping on the two Spanish cities whose sovereignty Morocco questions.
"During the preparation of the visit, in those previous days, even on the same day, we did not have any fear of possible reprisals or anything similar," says counselor Marín. In any case, it was not up to his government, nor the Ceuta government, to anticipate that. It was the Spanish Foreign Ministry that analyzed possible Moroccan reactions to the trip.
The visit consisted of two parts - a year before the former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was in Ceuta and Melilla - and, since they learned that it was wanted to take place, in this portfolio they began to prepare it. "Logically, speaking with Moroccans," says the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Bernardino León. Contact with their counterparts was full, in order to avoid a major clash: "The fundamental principle for us in the relationship with Morocco was to have maximum communication and, above all, try not to give surprises." Because "in diplomacy, when you anticipate, you can always manage complicated situations better." Under that premise, the then Foreign Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, met in Marrakech with his counterpart shortly before the announcement - he did so just a few hours after Felipe and Letizia, Princes at that time, had dinner there with the heirs of the Alawite kingdom.
The diplomatic crisis, in fact, happened. Rabat, the day after the Kings' trip was announced, expressed its "rejection and absolute disapproval of this regrettable initiative, whatever the motivations and objectives of the visit." Leaders of the neighboring country came to call it a "provocation" and, a few hours after Juan Carlos I and Doña Sofía arrived in Ceuta, Morocco escalated the diplomatic clash by calling its ambassador in Spain for consultations. Now, 19 years later, the Alawite kingdom seems to be measuring the reaction more: the silence that followed the announcement of the visit of Felipe VI and Doña Letizia to the two cities was only broken last Friday by King Mohamed VI to warn that its association with Spain "cannot be subject to pressure, threats or blackmail."
Beyond the diplomatic response, Juan Carlos I's trip to Ceuta and Melilla also generated a stir on the border, where there were certain signs of rejection. The press at the time reported that buses were chartered from the Moroccan towns closest to Ceuta, and that hundreds of people took them and gathered to protest. On the Internet, then nascent, a call circulated to boycott Spanish products. However, both gestures were in the minority, so the clash did not escalate from the disagreement that Rabat staged with the ambassador's call for consultations. "What we are trying to do is, through the diplomacy of the two countries, keep [the Moroccan protest measures] in that diplomatic bubble, so that it does not invade the entire relationship," explains León, who points out that they never feared that the response from the neighboring country could come through immigration. Days after the visit, Rabat already sang a more conciliatory speech.
For Councilor Marín, the passage of Juan Carlos I through Melilla was a "turning point": "What it does is further reinforce something that is undoubted, which is our Spanishness." The visit of Felipe VI, therefore, trusts that it will be "another injection of encouragement" to the citizens. Because the gesture is the same, even if the situation is different. The Kings arrive to the two autonomous cities on an accelerated trip after the massive entry into Ceuta at the end of July, which Pedro Sánchez described as an "attack" and "violation of the territorial integrity of Spain."
