The restart of the political course has clearly revealed a new deep rift within the coalition government, adding to the already existing one regarding the response the Government should give to Morocco concerning its responsibility for the massive assault on July 30 and 31. The Minister of Culture and spokesperson for Sumar, Ernest Urtasun, staged this midday the direct clash of his party with the socialist wing of the Government over the management of the migration crisis in Ceuta. While the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has flatly ruled out the option of transferring migrants who remain in the autonomous city to the Peninsula, the junior coalition partner has described this measure as “urgent” and “essential.”
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In fact, the plurinational party will make the demand for the transfer of migrants the central axis of its discourse during the appearance Sánchez will make this Thursday in Congress.
During the first press conference after the summer recess, Urtasun linked the stabilization of the autonomous city and the safeguarding of human rights to the immediate activation of these transfers to the Peninsula. “There must be transfers. It is important to relocate those 500 girls. Our position is firm and the Ministry of the Interior already knows it. There is capacity and in the centers… there are places. We have that information,” the spokesperson asserted, emphasizing that this route is the only way for the city to “recover normality” in accordance with what is required by international legislation.
Urtasun also argued that the delay in administrative procedures advises against maintaining the migration bottleneck in the autonomous city. As he warned, the processing time for some files can extend up to two months, so it is reasonable to address this process without the current concentration of people. Likewise, he pointed out the presence of groups that “we already know will not return,” such as “hundreds of Sudanese” whose profile clearly fits international protection. “Ceuta cannot be Europe’s backyard,” the minister emphasized to urge the decongestion of the plaza.
In this regard, Sumar has directed severe condemnations towards the European Union and the pressures exerted by the Commission to prevent departures to the continent. Urtasun sharply criticized the community model of border outsourcing, labeling it a “resounding failure” from Greece to Spain. To support his position, he invoked the practice followed in other points of border saturation, explicitly recalling the Italian precedent: “In 2023, under Giorgia Meloni’s government, more than 64,000 people were relocated from Lampedusa to the Italian peninsula by ships.”
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In its analysis of the genesis of the episode that occurred at the end of July, Sumar has drawn a predominantly geopolitical reading. The party has described the massive jump as a “politically motivated destabilization attempt” coordinated by the “reactionary international.” Likewise, the spokesperson directly pointed to Rabat, stating that Morocco’s responsibility “by action or omission is clear.”
The clash within the Council of Ministers coincides with the approval tomorrow, at the weekly cabinet meeting, of a Royal Decree that will include business bonuses, specific ERTEs, and aid to self-employed workers to ease the city’s economy.
However, on the purely sociopolitical level, Sumar has raised the tone against the opposition. Urtasun harshly attacked the leader of the PP: “We do not want to hear one more word from Mr. Feijóo and his hypocrisy when he talks about the treatment of immigrants when not a single PP regional president has proposed measures or accepted hosting immigrants in their territories.” The spokesperson accused the Popular Party of “feeding a climate of hatred” and reproached the right-wing regional governments for the systematic blocking of solidarity mechanisms and interterritorial distribution.
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