At least ten autonomous communities will attend the Sectoral Conference on Childhood and Adolescence this Thursday, August 27, which will address the extraordinary credit of 25 million euros allocated to the care of migrant minors in Ceuta, following the massive arrival of foreigners on July 30, as well as the possible distribution of these minors among the autonomous communities. And, for now, three others have confirmed that they will be absent from the meeting: Castilla y León, Extremadura, and Aragón, while the Balearic Islands, the Community of Madrid, and La Rioja have so far avoided confirming their presence.
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Andalusia, Catalonia, Murcia, Galicia, the Valencian Community, Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias, Cantabria, Navarra, and the Canary Islands will be present at this technical meeting between the Secretary of State for Youth and Childhood, Rubén Pérez, and the general directors of Childhood of the autonomous communities, although it is also expected that some of these communities will send higher-ranking officials, such as Catalonia, which will be represented by the Minister of Social Rights, Raúl Moreno. Euskadi, through its Childhood officials, has indicated that it will also attend.
It was this Wednesday when the vice presidents of the regional governments of Castilla y León, Extremadura, and Aragón –Carlos Pollán, Óscar Fernández Calle, and Alejandro Nolasco, from Vox– announced that their regions will not attend the Sectoral Conference on Childhood and Adolescence and that they will legally challenge every file of migrant minors from Ceuta that does not end with their return to Morocco.
Andalusia, Catalonia, Murcia, Galicia, the Valencian Community, Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias, Cantabria, Navarra, and the Canary Islands will be at the meeting
These three regions have sent separate letters to the Ministry of Youth and Childhood, led by Sira Rego, requesting that their explicit veto “to any distribution of unaccompanied minors” from the autonomous city “to any part of the national territory” be recorded in the minutes of the meeting. According to the regional representatives, the communities they govern are in a state of “saturation” and in their letters they reaffirm the arguments presented in an initial communication sent on August 8 and criticize that the ministry addresses the territorial distribution of the 25 million euro credit for the care of these young people without previously resolving their individualized administrative situation.
These regional governments argue that as long as the central government does not initiate and resolve the return or family reunification files in accordance with Article 35 of the Organic Law on Foreigners, transferring the minors to other regions “lacks foundation” and “materially hinders the location of their parents.”
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The absentees explain their veto “to any distribution of unaccompanied minors” from Ceuta “to any part of the national territory”
These same autonomous communities already declined to attend the sectoral meeting on August 13, where the date for tomorrow’s meeting was decided, and now emphasize the deficiencies in the Government’s management of this crisis, which aims for a “capricious, random, and arbitrary distribution” and “does not pass the most basic proportionality test.”
They also focus on the situation of cases of abuse of minors that have been recorded in Ceuta in recent days. Thus, they demand “that no girl or adolescent, Spanish or foreign, suffer sexual assaults again in the streets of Ceuta or in reception centers,” and request that “the perpetrators, accomplices, and cover-ups of these crimes be identified so that they are judged, convicted, and expelled in execution of the sentence.”
In addition to debating the distribution of resources allocated to immigrant reception, Minister Sira Rego will propose at Thursday’s meeting to include an informational and debate item on the care of unaccompanied migrant minors from Ceuta, which will have to be voted on. The objective, according to sources from the Ministry of Youth and Childhood, is to add a broad item on all issues related to childhood, including the proposal to transfer 500 girls from Ceuta to the Peninsula.
Page asks for “all the strength of the State” but offers to collaborate within the law
The president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, has asked for “all the strength of the State” in Ceuta because what has happened “goes beyond an immigration problem; it is a national security problem that must be responded to.” However, he has also stated that the autonomous community will provide all the services requested within the law. Nevertheless, the president of Castilla-La Mancha has also demanded that the Government keep its word to “return all those who have entered illegally” because “the opposite would be tantamount to provoking new invasions.”
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