The Balearic president, Marga Prohens, has demanded that the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, provide explanations about the reports warning of the high risk of a massive arrival of migrants by sea to the Balearic Islands and, especially, about what measures the Government took after receiving these warnings. Prohens considers it “very serious” that the institutions of the Islands were not informed of an alert that, as she emphasized, directly affected the community’s security.
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In his appearance this Thursday in Congress to give details about the crisis in Ceuta, the Prime Minister assured that the reports he had on the table warning of an increase in maritime arrivals referred to the peninsula and the Balearic Islands, not to Ceuta. Prohens has held an extraordinary appearance to ask the Government what it did to protect the Balearic Islands after receiving the warnings.
“We assume that if the Government receives an alert that compromises our security, extraordinary measures are taken to be prepared,” she stated. She has demanded to know “what specific plans have been activated and what resources have been reinforced and put into action to avoid these high-risk situations.”
The president has questioned that the Balearic Government was not informed of the existence of these warnings, reports “that compromise the security of the Balearic Islands,” according to the Balearic president. She has denounced that this is “very sensitive information” that, in her opinion, could not have been hidden from the regional authorities.
Sánchez met with Pedro Sánchez one day before the massive entry into Ceuta
Precisely, the president recalled that the alert occurred before July 30, the day the massive entry of migrants into Ceuta took place, and emphasized that the president was in the Balearic Islands one day earlier, on July 29, and held a meeting with her before attending his audience with the King at the Palau de l’Almudaina. “Not only were we not informed and it was hidden from us, but he said that arrivals to the Balearic Islands would decrease,” she denounced. According to her account, during that meeting Sánchez told her that “migratory flows were improving.” “I proved him wrong and told him that we would be close to the figures of the Canary Islands, something that has already happened,” she explained.
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Prohens now wants to know what information the central Government had at that time and, above all, what it did with it. She will ask the Government “through official channels” if Frontex was activated, if European institutions were informed, and what extraordinary reinforcements were deployed to control the maritime border. “The Balearic Islands are the southern border of Europe,” she pointed out.
The president has announced that she will formally submit these questions in writing to Sánchez to demand all available information. “The Prime Minister said that the security of the Balearic Islands has been at risk for more than a month,” she said. “The first thing is that we are given all this information and that we are told what was done after this alert,” she insisted.
Prohens has also demanded the development of “a specific plan to respond to this extraordinary situation” and a “sufficient and extraordinary reinforcement of human resources of the security forces for the protection of the maritime border.” She has also proposed requesting the European Union to activate Frontex with permanent resources in the Balearic Islands.
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