The distribution across the peninsula of the hundreds of migrant minors who remain in Ceuta after last Thursday’s mass crossing represents the first test of coexistence between the PP and Vox in four regional governments. The vice presidents that Santiago Abascal’s party has in Extremadura, Aragón, Castilla y León, and Andalusia made their intention to “oppose” hosting these boys and girls in their communities clear yesterday, thus clashing with a PP that assured that their governments “will always comply with the law.” However, despite this clash, it does not seem that the relationship between the right-wing parties is in danger in the executives they share.
“The conversations we have had in the governments are that they will oppose it,” said Vox spokesperson José María Figaredo this Thursday, who elaborated that his “feeling,” “based on the statements made by Miguel Tellado [PP secretary general] the other day,” is that the populars are not willing to accept the migrant minors who remain in Ceuta.
The context inevitably refers to the situation that occurred two years ago, when another distribution of migrant minors to relieve the care services in the Canary Islands ended up causing the four coalition governments that then shared PP and Vox – Extremadura, Castilla y León, Aragón, Valencian Community, and Region of Murcia – to fall apart. However, in an interview on Cuatro, Figaredo wanted to distinguish that scenario from the current one: back then, “the PP voted in favor of the distribution of minors”; now, the distribution would be mandatory under a decree that was ratified last year in Congress, and which did not have the support of the populars.
“The current situation is different,” Figaredo insisted, assuring that the “PP and Vox governments” intend to “totally oppose the distribution, fight so that it does not take place.” In any case, the Vox spokesperson wanted to emphasize that, for now, “there is no distribution order,” so talking about what will happen if the communities where they govern have to host those minors seems to him like “political fiction.”
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The leader of the hard-right party also stated that their governments “will comply with the law,” although, in his opinion, it establishes that “minors do not have to be distributed.” Vox demands that the boys and girls who remain in Ceuta, which is around 1,200 minors according to the city’s government estimate, be “returned immediately” to Morocco, and not distributed to the peninsula to relieve the situation faced by Ceuta’s reception services.
The popular deputy secretary Elías Bendodo also called for the Government to “resolve” this situation: “Not to throw the ball to the communities,” he said from Ceuta. In any case, as other leaders from Génova did yesterday, Bendodo assured that the regional governments shared by PP and Vox “will comply with the law on irregular immigration” because, he pointed out, this is included in the agreements they sealed to start the legislature.
