The memoirs of Juan Carlos I address the future of the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla

The future of the sovereignty of the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which historically belong to Spain but Morocco has claimed as its own for decades, will have to be resolved in this generation between Felipe VI and Mohamed VI. This is reflected in the book of memoirs of Juan Carlos I, which under the title Reconciliation reviews the main threads of the life of the current king emeritus and which contains several episodes of relations with Morocco before and during his reign.

The Spanish monarch openly recognizes that there has always been a dispute between the two countries over the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla, to the point of writing down that Hassan II used to leave this issue open with a phrase that encouraged uncertainty for the future: "The next generation will have to resolve it."

Hassan II thus referred to the current present of both countries with his son Mohamed VI at the head of Morocco and with Felipe VI as head of the Spanish State. This week, precisely, the Minister of Justice of the neighboring government has once again claimed the territories of both autonomous cities in the midst of the crisis unleashed by the irregular entry at the end of July of at least 72,000 immigrants into Ceuta.

The previous Alawite king used to speak of Ceuta and Melilla as a temporary sovereignty with Juan Carlos I, who admits that he managed to forge a "special relationship" with whom he refers to as a "brother", aware that "Morocco was our main economic partner."

Don Juan Carlos boasts in his book that the friendship between the two served to provide "stability to bilateral relations" because "the tensions between our two governments did not affect the cordiality with which we treated each other." "Sometimes I would call him directly to try to smooth out or defuse a problem."

However, the relationship was born in a traumatic way for Spain in the midst of the crisis due to the Green March that Morocco launched on the Sahara, when it was still Spanish territory, on the eve of the death of the dictator Francisco Franco. Hassan II took advantage of that moment of weakness to send tens of thousands of men on foot "armed with the Koran and with national flags" in "a way of imposing sovereignty over the area and consolidating the mobilization of the Moroccan people for that cause."

Don Juan Carlos made the decision to travel by plane to El Aaiún, on a flight that he himself piloted, to stand in front of the Spanish troops and order the military "to withdraw because the Spanish Army cannot fire on a crowd of unarmed women."