Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez criticizes King Felipe VI over Ceuta migration crisis

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez appeared to criticize King Felipe VI on Monday over his lack of involvement in the ongoing migration crisis in Ceuta, chiding the monarch for his failure to visit the city.

“There are more than enough reasons and motives for the head of state to visit Ceuta and Melilla,” Sánchez told Spanish radio network Cadena SER, giving his first interview since 72,000 migrants surged into Spain’s North African autonomous city one month ago.

It is highly unusual for members of the Spanish government to publicly challenge the Crown’s actions. Yet Sánchez’s statement hinted at his frustration with the head of state’s absence from the Ceuta response, which he contrasted with his own emergency visit to the city, and his government’s on-the-ground handling of the still unresolved crisis.

“A lot of people think I’ve been governing for a long time, but I’ve only been in power for eight years,” said Sánchez, who has visited Ceuta four times since becoming prime minister. “The king has reigned for 20 years. How many times has he gone to Ceuta and Melilla? Not once.”

Sánchez’s statement was technically incorrect: Felipe VI has only been on the throne since 2014. The prime minister appeared to be referring to former King Juan Carlos I’s five-hour visit to Ceuta in 2007 — the last time a Spanish head of state visited the city.

The only other Spanish heads of state known to have visited were King Alfonso XIII, who traveled there in 1927, and President of the Second Republic Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, who visited Ceuta in 1933.

While declining to “share the content of the conversations I have with the head of state,” Sánchez emphasized he had recommended the king travel to the city. He said a royal visit would happen but declined to say when, noting it depended on “there being the conditions for it to happen.”

In the past, Spain’s kings have played an important role in the country’s interactions with Morocco. Juan Carlos I had a deep personal friendship with the late King Hassan II of Morocco, and was frequently called upon to handle back-channel negotiations when Madrid and Rabat clashed.

But Felipe VI is not known to have a similarly close relationship with Morocco’s current monarch, Mohammed VI. According to the Sánchez government, Spain’s king was asked to call his counterpart in Rabat in the immediate aftermath of the crisis but declined to do so.

Thousands remain

Both the Spanish government and EU officials previously stated that nearly all of the unauthorized migrants who had crossed into Ceuta had returned to Morocco within just a few days, but Sánchez on Monday said that around 5,000 remain in the Spanish semi-exclave.

Over the past week, clashes have broken out throughout the city. Several migrants have been arrested for attacking members of the Spanish military, and Spanish police had to intervene to protect migrants after a group of locals set fire to the improvised shelters set up on one of Ceuta’s beaches.

Sánchez expressed solidarity with Ceuta’s residents and said he was confident normality would soon be restored. He compared the current situation to previous mass entries of migrants into the Canary Islands in 2020 and 2021, which he said the government had been able to handle.

The prime minister said that in the coming weeks, the approximately 1,200 unaccompanied minors who entered the city would be relocated to shelters on the Iberian Peninsula. Nearly all the other migrants are subject to deportation, he said, because “the majority of people who entered Ceuta did so for economic reasons” and therefore do not qualify for asylum.

The prime minister carefully avoided blaming Morocco for the crisis, instead attributing the surge to human-smuggling mafias, as well as to online campaigns orchestrated by Russia, Israel and “an international far-right group that always uses migration not only to attack Spain but also Europe, and divide it.”

“What would Morocco gain from these kinds of tactics?” asked Sánchez. “I have no information from Spanish security forces or our intelligence services that would cast any doubt on Moroccan authorities.”

“This crisis can only be resolved with cooperation,” he insisted. “Showing a lack of confidence in Morocco will only aggravate this situation.”

Governmental turbulence

Sánchez denied the suggestion that his government had ignored intelligence warnings and downplayed the growing rifts within his government regarding who knew what and when.

Last week, Defense Minister Margarita Robles told lawmakers in the Spanish parliament that the National Intelligence Center — which handles foreign and domestic intelligence as well as counterintelligence — had alerted national authorities that a surge could take place. The statement contradicted those made by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who has systematically insisted the government had no way of knowing such a crisis could take place.

In his statements on Monday, Sánchez attempted to strike a compromise, saying that while intelligence services had detected an increase in illegal entries into Ceuta in the days preceding the crisis, none of the alerts they issued predicted its magnitude.

He also rejected the criticism he received for going on vacation in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, saying: “Even politicians have the right to rest, but I can assure you that the prime minister does not disconnect.”

Sánchez has previously stated he will not only stand for reelection but that he intends to remain in power for years to come. On Monday, however, he struck a less confident tone, saying he would be willing to run for reelection if his Socialist Party selects him as its candidate next year.

The prime minister added that his “intention is to complete the term” that concludes next year, but he declined to rule out calling snap elections ahead of the nationwide local and regional votes scheduled for next May.

While conceding that “change is always good,” Sánchez warned of the possibility of the far-right Vox party coming to power. “We are talking about a regression that has been seen in other parts of the world and that I, of course, am going to fight tooth and nail to prevent from happening in our country.”