The pressure on Ceuta and Melilla and the limits of the Rabat strategy

Neither seduction nor nationalist excitement will serve Rabat to fulfill its territorial aspirations over Ceuta and Melilla. Tens of thousands of young Moroccans fleeing misery are proof of a deep disaffection, of the desperate will to leave behind a regime incapable of giving encouragement to its most helpless children.

Rabat will not win that battle by making itself desirable to those who live on the other side of the border, but it can make life in those places increasingly torturous. And it needs the apathy of the Spanish authorities to achieve it. If the goal is to make those plazas uninhabitable in the coming decades, this summer's experiment has been tremendously successful.

More than two weeks after the massive assault, Ceuta's basic services remain overwhelmed, with 84,000 residents frightened by the insecurity in their streets, forced to live with almost 10,000 people who remain in the autonomous city occupying large public spaces.

The episode demonstrates an enormous capacity to increase social and political pressure in a few hours, doubling the population of Ceuta in a single day and generating a deep internal debate in Spain and the European Union.

The avalanche also serves as a warning for the future. It points out the fragility of the border and establishes permanent blackmail that discourages any life project in that part of the country, insinuating that the cost of maintaining sovereignty is too high. What will happen if, instead of 80,000 entries, the number doubles in the future? What will happen if the next time most of them don't come back? Or if among the assailants there are groups organized to foment greater chaos? Instead of responding with firmness and dissuasion, the Government has only heard praise for the Moroccan management for readmitting a good part of the nationals that they previously encouraged to go to Spain.

Added to the demographic pressure is the economic asphyxiation that Morocco has been practicing for years, modulating the passage of goods through customs. It does so despite the improvement of the relationship with Madrid, once the Government of Spain handed over the Moroccan theses on Western Sahara through a maneuver revealed, in a humiliating manner, by the royal palace of Morocco.

The transfers of recent years dwarf the complexes of this and other Spanish governments when it comes to defending the status of these places. There are innumerable symptoms of lukewarmness: from the apparent impossibility of authorizing a visit from the King to the delay in the deployment of the Army during 30-J or the lack of ambition to fully protect and develop two territories of great strategic importance. The comprehensive security plan for Ceuta and Melilla promised in 2021 has not even been promoted, shortly after the first massive assault on the Ceuta border.