Given the criticism received by the Government after the publication this afternoon of the declassified reports on the Ceuta crisis, President Pedro Sánchez, La Moncloa and the Government Delegation in Ceuta have defended the Executive's actions and have denied that the CNI warned of the risk of the massive entry that Ceuta experienced on July 30 and 31. “With the information that existed, no one could anticipate the migration crisis that occurred,” the president wrote on the social network The CNI did alert the Moroccan intelligence services of “calls” on WhatsApp and Facebook and one of its agents told a member of the Government Delegation that there were groups with 180,000 users. This information has allowed the popular parliamentary spokesperson, Ester Muñoz, to accuse the Government of lying. “They had the information, they are directly responsible for the invasion of Ceuta and the deaths,” he launched.
The Government minimizes the WhatsApp message from a CNI agent to the chief of staff of the delegate in Ceuta in which he told him that there were several Facebook groups with 180,000 people organizing for a possible jump to Ceuta. Sources from La Moncloa point out that this notice was not even conveyed to the Government delegate because it did not have that level of urgency, nor did the CNI agent formally raise it to his superiors or make a report, which shows that he did not give it much importance. Sumar, a coalition partner, has avoided taking a position on the Executive's performance in managing the crisis and has focused on the abandonment of Morocco, while the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, accuses the Government of being "directly responsible for the invasion of Ceuta and the deceased."
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has reiterated on Twitter the message previously given by the Government Delegation in Ceuta and La Moncloa. "On July 29, the CNI informed the Government Delegation in Ceuta that a call was circulating in two Facebook groups to enter the city irregularly during the week of the Throne Festival. [...] The existence of this campaign was known by other institutions and was being monitored, but in no way constituted or could be interpreted as an indicator of the scale, nature or probability of what happened next," he wrote on the social network X.
Sánchez has pointed out that "not even" the CNI could foresee that 70,000 people would enter the city: "Proof of its prudence is that this organization limited itself to transmitting that information by message and brief telephone call to the Cabinet of the Delegation of the Government of Ceuta and to the UCE-3 of the Civil Guard and did not issue any major alert to its chain of command of the Armed Forces, the National Police or the Ministry of Defense."
The president ends his message by highlighting the response of the Government and public workers “as soon as the threat materialized, mobilizing all available resources.”
Judge María Tardón, instructor of the National Court, has admitted the appearance of the Government as a private accusation in the investigation opened by the massive irregular entry of migrants to Ceuta on July 30 and 31. The judge thus accepts the presence of the State Attorney's Office in the investigations, considering "the Kingdom of Spain itself" as harmed, after concluding that there are indications that this episode represented an "attack on the national sovereignty, independence and stability of the State, its territorial integrity, national defense, foreign security and the stability of our Rule of Law."
The reports published by the Government contain the WhatsApp messages that the CNI sent to the Government Delegation and the Civil Guard of the calls on social networks to cross to Ceuta "by fence and sea." The CNI wrote on July 29: "There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers. To give you an idea of the scope of the diffusion."
The documents on the Ceuta migration crisis declassified by the Government record how the intelligence services and the Civil Guard warned on July 30, the day on which thousands of migrants entered the autonomous city, of the passivity of the Moroccan authorities and their lack of troops on the other side of the border. An email from the Information Headquarters of the Civil Guard, in charge of public security and intelligence, contemplated among the possibilities of this change in attitude, from the surprise factor to a reaction "to recent political events", such as the meeting of the President of the Government of Spain with Algeria or the ruling of the Supreme Court that prohibited the immediate returns of immigrants who try to swim into Ceuta and Melilla.
The Government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Triano, has referred to the publication by La Moncloa of 40 documents prior to the massive entry into Ceuta on July 30 and 31 and has insisted that he was not aware of any notice from the CNI despite the fact that, among the declassified material, there is a conversation between the CNI and his Cabinet. Triano has assured that, although that conversation actually existed, it was held by a member of his cabinet with another from the intelligence center without either of them giving him knowledge. "On July 27, 28 and 29 there were conversations between a member of the CNI and a member of the cabinet. I did not know those conversations and neither did I know the content of the call that also appears in that declassification," Triano said at a press conference. However, he stressed that the WhatsApp messages from the 29th, now revealed, "do not represent an alert or any report." "It is a conversation between a person from the CNI and a member of the cabinet. It does not refer to the entry into Ceuta or the possibility of entry of 180,000 people, but rather it talks about a Facebook profile with 180,000 followers," the delegate specified.
The Government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, has defended the Government's actions and has denied that the CNI warned in a report of the risk of the massive entry that Ceuta experienced on July 30 and 31. “The WhatsApp messages on the 29th do not represent any alert or any report,” he stated, as La Moncloa had previously done. “It is nothing more than an exchange of information,” he added before detailing that when the CNI has an alert it issues it “in a lacquered envelope.” In fact, he has stated that the CNI itself has admitted that “it did not anticipate the magnitude and nature of what ended up happening on the 30th, as it was an unusual phenomenon that does not correspond to the migration crises experienced to date.” The Moncloa has released the CNI note where it states this, reports Carlos E. Cué.
To illustrate how the previous warnings did not allow us to foresee the magnitude of what would happen days later, he gave the example of a communication that he himself sent on July 24, in which he warned of an increase in attempts to enter the city in the previous weeks that, he believed, could be increased if there were "episodes of fog." In that report, he pointed out that “the first factor that causes very high instability in the immigration scenario” was given “by the Supreme Court's ruling” on the lack of resources of the Civil Guard, “causing a severe knock-on effect.”
As a result of these prior warnings, the number of troops in Ceuta was increased, according to Pérez Triano, in the face of a “migratory context that was getting worse every day.” However, he stressed that he could never imagine the magnitude of what happened on the 30th and 31st, when 70,000 people entered the autonomous city.
The works council of the Port Authority of Ceuta has called a demonstration in Ceuta against the camps that will house around a thousand migrants installed on the Poniente esplanade, in the port. About 300 people are participating, as reported by RTVE citing police sources. Among the reasons for going out into the streets, those gathered have pointed out the proximity of strategic facilities such as a fuel depot, an electrical distributor, the warehouse where the municipal bus company keeps its fleet, among others. “Pedro Sánchez, to prison,” is one of the proclamations that are repeated in the march.
The general coordinator of Movimiento Sumar and spokesperson for the parliamentary group in Congress, Verónica Barbero, has avoided commenting on the Government's actions after learning of the reports from the intelligence services and the security forces and bodies in the jump to Ceuta on July 30 and 31 and has held Morocco responsible for what happened. "We positively value this exercise of transparency carried out by the Government. Reading these reports shows what we have been saying since day one. The Moroccan authorities lowered their arms," the leader said in a message sent to the media.
"The externalization of EU borders is a failed policy. Because it causes third countries to blackmail us with this type of actions, endangering the lives of thousands of people. We consider that it is necessary to rethink our relationship with Morocco. We cannot allow situations of this type to happen again," he points out before demanding "urgent action as requested by the Minister of Children and that the migrants who are still in Ceuta be transferred to the Peninsula to be able to study their situation with all the guarantees."
By Ana María Bosch Pla. The head of the Vox delegation in the European Parliament, Jorge Buxadé, has demanded that Sánchez “and his band of evildoers” be taken to the Supreme Court for “treason and crimes against State security.” The Vox politician has encouraged joining his party's initiative to apply article 102 of the Spanish Constitution, which establishes the rules for demanding criminal responsibility from members of the Government, including the president, before the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court. This means that if a member of the Government is suspected of committing a crime, impeachment proceedings can be initiated and the person concerned would be tried before this chamber of the Supreme Court. Furthermore, if the accusation is for treason or any crime against the security of the State in the exercise of its functions, the initiative can only be presented by a quarter of the members of Congress and approved with an absolute majority.
The Moncloa has responded to the avalanche of criticism that the Government is receiving after the publication of 40 reports prior to the massive entry into Ceuta at the end of July. “The CNI communications of July 29 never warned of a massive arrival,” he specified and clarified that the call on Facebook to enter the city during the week of the Moroccan Throne Festival was already known “by other institutions and that in no way constituted or was interpreted as an indicator of scale or prospective probability.”
“Proof of this is that the CNI itself did not issue any formal alert and limited itself to transmitting that information by message and brief phone call to the Cabinet of the Delegation of the Government of Ceuta and to the UCE-3 of the Civil Guard,” adds the statement from La Moncloa, which maintains that “an organization that believes that a massive entry will occur the next day does not limit itself to sending an ambiguous WhatsApp to a minor official.”
The PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, has commented on the reports published by the Government on the prior notices to the massive entry of migrants to Ceuta and has described as a “state lie” the statements of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, that there had been no prior notice from the CNI. "They had the information, they are directly responsible for the invasion of Ceuta and the deaths."
Muñoz has highlighted the requests from the Civil Guard at the beginning of July, in which they demanded more resources. “The Government did nothing,” he stated.
