The appearance of Pedro Sánchez in Congress to give explanations about the Ceuta crisis has confirmed that the Government was wrong throughout the month of August when it considered that the mishap was almost solved with the immediate Moroccan decision to reabsorb the people who had swum to El Tarajal beach. Many returned to Morocco, the vast majority, but not all. Just under 10% are still in Ceuta, minors whom no one claims and mostly sub-Saharan immigrants.
Sánchez did not evaluate well Juan Jesús Vivas, president of the autonomous city since 2001. He has been in office for twenty-five years, in the French style: long-term mayors who know the terrain very well. French mayor in North Africa. An old-school politician, Vivas is not the kind of bully that now appears on television, but just because he doesn't attack doesn't mean he's lazy. Without Vivas, this crisis is impossible to manage. A parade of ministers through the city is useless without the consent or complicity of the mayor-president of Ceuta, a member of the mahogany sector of the Popular Party. In this crisis, he has more living authorities than Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Second error: not having properly calibrated the reverberation of the Ceuta event in the different strata of Spanish society. For the older ones, whether they vote popular or socialist, the Barranco del Lobo and the Annual Disaster have returned, the two great setbacks of the Spanish army in North Africa in the last century, echoes of yesteryear, genetic memories of the Rif War, which took down the Restoration parties, General Primo de Rivera and finally the Alfonso monarchy. Memories of Franco's Moravian Guard. Memories, more recent, of the humiliating Spanish departure from Western Sahara in 1976, of the Sahrawi children spending their holidays in democratic Spain, and of Sánchez's recent turn in 2022, that farewell to the Polisario Front, never debated in Parliament, which Podemos complied with so as not to break the coalition government.
All this political-sentimental burden has exploded in the hands of the President of the Government this summer, while he believed that he had the situation under control because the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, the powerful Nasser Bourita, directly connected to King Mohamed VI, promised José Manuel Albares that Morocco would reabsorb all of its nationals who had crossed the border, swearing to the Spanish side that the Rabat government did not cause the stampede. That may be true, which does not mean that the Moroccan State has nothing to do with what happened. There is also chaos in Moroccan power circles.
It is possible that those who instigated it are now surprised by the magnitude of the event, since this avalanche of more than 80,000 people reveals the deep unrest of Moroccan youth, which was already evident a year ago with the protest of the so-called generation Z, demonstrations that lasted several months and ended badly. They asked for better public services, less corruption and less waste in soccer stadiums. Three dead, hundreds injured and 1,400 people prosecuted. Without this wave of protests, which began a year ago, what happened at the end of July is probably not understood.
Bourita offered a quick resorption of the hematoma, but that promise, largely fulfilled, did not close the trauma. The Barranco del Lobo has returned this summer to a Spanish society that is very politically tense, confused and uncertain about the future. A quick, cold and painless solution to a huge crisis was not possible, which tycoon Elon Musk immediately went viral with a series of messages on X, a network of which he is the owner, with images of wild zombies jumping over the wall of a fortified city. “This is what will happen in the United States if the Democrats win again,” said Musk's message, always at the service of Donald Trump. Draw your conclusions. Sánchez opted for an attitude that is also inscribed in Spanish tradition: his gesture was impassive. Mistake. This morning's parliamentary session revolved around that error.
Sánchez is a very resistant politician - today he has demonstrated it again in Congress - but not a Homeric titan from a Christopher Nolan film. These titans only exist in literature. The resistance of the current President of the Government rests on a mental cooling system that allows him to cool down and distance himself from the tensions that surround him. There are people with strong psychological armor. Sánchez is one of them. This cooling mechanism, however, is incompatible with the “dramatic sense of history.” People with a very sensitive thermostat, with a great capacity for evocation, tend to suffer and are generally incompatible with professional politics.
There is no capacity for resistance without a certain insensitivity. To solve this there are counselors and advisors. It is possible that Sánchez's advisors failed him this summer. Right-wing Spain has wanted to remember the Barranco del Lobo, and left-wing Spain has wanted to remember the Green March of Hassan II, with Henry Kissinger behind it, and the subsequent humiliation of the Sahrawi people, now abandoned by almost everyone. Sánchez has been left in the middle of both emotional movements, isolated and stabbed by 22 European governments. Faced with this serious circumstance, some police agencies have once again heard the forest's claim. Sectors of the State apparatus that operate autonomously in a situation of serious political crisis. It happened in October/November 2017, as a result of the Catalan spasm, and it is happening again now, with the Moroccan spasm. One of Sánchez's mistakes has been not activating the state scenery with all the trumpeting available, to discipline and invoke order. Order, the great theme of our time. Liturgical acts discipline. A Council of Ministers in Ceuta, for example.
These have been the axes of this morning's debate in Congress. Surely aware of the errors committed last Monday before the microphones of the Ser channel, the President of the Government has somewhat toughened his tone on Morocco - just a little -, he has reduced the allusions to Russia and Israel, he still does not mention the United States - pay attention to this fact -, he has announced that the King will travel to Ceuta in the coming weeks (there is no date yet), he has promised to publish a dossier with all the police and intelligence reports received by the Executive during the days and hours prior to the crisis, has proposed initiatives for greater Europeanization of Ceuta and Melilla (entry into the Customs Union), and has offered maximum support to the people of Ceuta, with an emotional message directly addressed to the man on the street. Emotionality is another of Sánchez's weak points, for the reasons we mentioned before.
He began his speech by recalling that the bronze lions on the steps of the Congress were cast with cannons confiscated from the Moroccans in the battle of Wad-Ras in 1860, the end point of the first African war. After that battle, the limits of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla were expanded, and Spain took possession of Sidi-Ifni, south of Agadir, returned to Morocco in 1969. Fifteen days ago, Sánchez would not have even jokingly started a speech in Congress evoking the battle of Wad-Ras.
Political victory for the Spanish right, which today has shown two convergent strategies, with separate points. Vox wants to activate article 102 of the Constitution so that the Supreme Court can try Sánchez for high treason. This accusation should be presented by 25% of the deputies (Vox does not have them) and approved by the absolute majority of Congress, that is, it would need the votes of Junts. If approved, the Supreme Court should investigate and decide to open a trial. If convicted, the prisoner could not be pardoned. An impeachment. This article of the Constitution has never been activated in Spain. The 102 route was publicly suggested last May by the jurist Pedro Cruz Villalón, former magistrate of the Constitutional Court, in an article published in the newspaper El Pais, a thesis later supported by the journalist José Antonio Zarzalejos in El Confidencial. Today it is the Vox flag.
In a harsh and implacable intervention, Núñez Feijóo has also referred to the Supreme Court, but this does not mean that the PP is going to give its votes to Vox to bring the activation of article 102 to the plenary session of Congress. Not for now. The PP trusts in a progression of the investigation opened by Judge María Tardón of the National Court, and contemplates the possibility that the matter jumps to the Supreme Court, with the consequent entry on the scene of the Second Chamber, breakwater of all the political cataclysms in Spain.
Conclusion of the debate: Sánchez begins to reconfigure his speech, the PP redoubles its commitment to judicial means and Vox directs the ideological battle from the bottom of the Barranco del Lobo. The President of the Government has been described as a traitor, of being sold out to Mohamed VI, of being the object of relentless blackmail from Morocco, but no one has spoken of a motion of censure. The judges are summoned to close the legislature.
