Return is the word that best explains the new direction of the Government in Ceuta: that of the adults who still remain in the city, that of the minors when circumstances allow – since their return requires greater guarantees and a specific procedure – and, above all, that of normality. Because Moncloa’s priority is no longer so much to manage the crisis opened on July 30 and 31 as to close it.
The messages coming from Rabat, through its Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi, either about the possibility of breaking the bilateral extradition treaty that operates between Spain and Morocco, or questioning the Spanish sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla, an issue he says he repeatedly raises in meetings with the Spanish Government, do not alter the position of Pedro Sánchez’s Executive, which tries to cool down any kind of clash with the neighboring country and to avoid a diplomatic confrontation, with the migratory and sovereignty crisis as a backdrop.
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has repeatedly praised the relationship and cooperation in all areas with the Kingdom of Morocco following the migration crisis unleashed in Ceuta since July 30 and has raised to 1,898 the number of minors who still remain in the autonomous city and have been registered.
The Ministry of the Interior has installed a floating barrier in the sea in Melilla, similar to the one it placed in Ceuta a few days ago after tens of thousands of people entered the autonomous city on July 30.
The Government and the PP have agreed on the fundamental solution for the 1,527 migrant minors who remain in Ceuta, but they continue to clash over how to manage the meantime. The agreement that the priority solution involves family reunification and return to Morocco, put forward by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Justice, has not prevented a new clash between the Executive and the communities governed by the Popular Party, which this Thursday refused to include a specific item for information and debate on the situation of the minors and the autonomous city in the agenda of the next Sectoral Conference on Childhood and Adolescence.
The case of the luxury penthouse in Chamberí acquired by the Community of Madrid has experienced in recent hours a qualitative leap that tightens the seams of the regional Government presided over by Isabel Díaz Ayuso. What began as a first-rate political controversy due to shadows of opacity and the changing explanations from Puerta del Sol has formally entered the courts, after the head of the Court of Instruction number 8 of Madrid, magistrate Rosario de Fátima Espinosa, has opened preliminary proceedings in relation to five complaints focused on the purchase of a property worth 6.3 million euros executed by a Madrid public company.
The central Government intends to “prioritize,” as Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres assured yesterday, the family reunification of unaccompanied migrant minors who remain in Ceuta after crossing en masse to the autonomous city on July 30 and 31. But this route, now prioritized over relocation to other autonomous communities, presents serious difficulties. Among them, the full cooperation of the countries of origin, but also the willingness of the minor to return to the place they fled from. Hence, an open door, which the Government hinted at yesterday, is the possibility that these adolescents, mostly Moroccan, be reunited with relatives who already live in other parts of Spain or even in other European countries.
“Do not risk their lives, their money, their future in an adventure doomed to failure.” On his first official visit to the autonomous city of Ceuta – the first ever by a Foreign Minister in the history of Spain – José Manuel Albares delivered a strong message this Tuesday to those planning to cross illegally into Ceuta, Melilla, or the Peninsula, guaranteeing that “even the last person who has entered irregularly will be returned to Morocco.”
The Moroccan Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi, has firmly demanded the return to Morocco of Moroccan children and minors who crossed the Ceuta border at the end of July and are currently in Spain, and has held the Spanish authorities responsible for their situation.
The Civil Guard has arrested one of the daughters of the couple formed by the former secretary of the Union of Farmers and Ranchers of Aragon (UAGA), Javier Sánchez, and Esther Latorre, who were murdered last Friday in Tauste (Zaragoza), and her current partner as alleged perpetrators of the double homicide, according to sources from the armed institute.