Candela López (Lomas de Zamora, Argentina, 1985) leads the Comuns together with Gemma Tarafa since November 2024. She is also in charge of the negotiations to rebuild what was Sumar.
The former minister Jaume Giró has definitively broken with Junts per Catalunya and has resigned as a member of the post-convergent party.
After the chaos caused last week by the massive entry of migrants both by swimming and over the Ceuta fence, the consequences are now beginning to be seen. On one hand the political ones and on the other the humanitarian ones. The latest data available is that there are already 90 deaths while trying to swim from Morocco to Ceuta, although it is already assumed that more bodies will appear in the coming days.
Paper can withstand anything. When the Immigration Law was reformed a year and a half ago to redistribute unaccompanied immigrant minors without family support among the autonomous communities, the term “ordinary capacity” was established. A standard for the reception places for unaccompanied foreign minors that each territory should have, based on its population. With calculator in hand, Ceuta’s ordinary capacity was set at 29 beds. The autonomous city, after last week’s massive influx, is caring for 862 minors; four times more than just two weeks ago. 2,865% more than its capacity. And there are still dozens of them on the street, hidden, unidentified.
The Government has dismissed an official from the Department of National Security after publishing last Friday the figure of about 49,000 people who would have entered Ceuta last week coming from Morocco.
More extraordinary than the EU Interior Ministers’ meeting itself taking place today after the Ceuta crisis is the political escalation that precedes it. The crisis between Italy and Spain has not only not eased but continues to intensify with unprecedented harshness.
The avalanche of immigrants who entered Ceuta last week not only captured attention due to the humanitarian emergency but also because of its geopolitical consequences and diplomatic implications. International media featured front pages and news reports with images from El Tarajal, but have maintained coverage focusing on the reasons behind what happened and have analyzed who wins and who loses in this whole story.
The Government has avoided in recent days blaming Morocco for the migratory avalanche that took place in Ceuta last week. This Monday it went a step further by having kind words about the “collaboration” of the neighboring country in the return of “the vast majority” of the people who crossed the border through the El Tarajal breakwater to Moroccan soil between Thursday and Friday, although there is no unanimity and that message is not conveyed the same way from all ministries. For now, rather than looking south, the criticisms are directed both at the opposition parties –PP and Vox– and at other European Union member states –especially Italy– that have questioned Spain’s role in this whole matter and that tomorrow Tuesday will address the issue in an extraordinary meeting of the community interior ministers. And at the “reactionary international” that according to the Government spread “lies and false news.”
The French government was one of the members of the European Union that did not sign the letter that censured Spain’s immigrant regularization policy and linked that strategy to the crisis that occurred this weekend in Ceuta. The letter had been promoted by the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni and by other European countries such as Germany.
The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, has called on Morocco this Monday to investigate “to the end” the massive entry of migrants into Ceuta and has defended the work of the Spanish intelligence services, both those of her department and those under the Interior Ministry.
