The shockwave of the sudden arrival in Ceuta of 80,000 foreigners in irregular situations will mark the start of the new political term with the accountability, next week in Congress, of up to seven ministers. Beyond the severe criticism from the opposition benches, which is taken for granted, the PSOE faces the internal digestion of how the Executive of Pedro Sánchez has acted in the face of a migration emergency of unprecedented dimension.
“This crisis bears a 100% similarity to the corruption cases affecting the party and the Government: the Government has shown signs of being overwhelmed, flooded, and powerless, which translates into a Government that is unable to manage in the short, medium, or long term,” lament a federation. “It is surviving one more day, one more day, one more day… while events control it and not the other way around. It is the worst thing that can happen to a Government,” they add ahead of the countdown to an intenseelectoral cycle with general elections on a date yet to be determined and regional and municipal elections next May.
A public official, in turn, maintains that “the judicial fronts, considered amortized, feed the narrative of lawfare, victimhood, and internally close the party and the most fanatical media space.” “It does not mean it goes in favor, but almost,” he argues. On the other hand, he contrasts that “Ceuta does open veins that were not contemplated”: “Internally it is very tough, not only in the PSOE of Ceuta, who rightly are as they are, but also outside. No reaction has been seen, a feeling of paralysis has been transmitted, and the issue of the relationship with Morocco is not well understood, what is going on there… There are quite a few doubts. It seems that an international issue should not cause problems, but it has not been well managed and it will cause them.”
Sources from the party in the Canary Islands not aligned with the officialism of the secretary general, Minister Ángel Víctor Torres, criticize, on the other hand, that the islands, “like Ceuta and Melilla, are at the mercy of Morocco’s desires, with the approval of the Government of Spain,” among which they cite “the expansion of territorial waters, air traffic over the Sahara, rare earths and, of course, the Sahara.” They also recall that “the most dreadful chapter of immigration” in the archipelago was the overcrowding at the Arguineguín dock (Gran Canaria) of 2,600 people in one weekend and that the central Government’s reaction then was also “chaotic.”
For now, this crisis has already torn apart the seams of the Ceuta PSOE: its deputy and first vice president in the Assembly, Melchor León, has called for the resignation of Sánchez’s delegate in the region, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, from his own party. “While this city bleeds, with 28 million euros in losses, suspended festivals, closing businesses, and neighbors who no longer recognize their streets, he has put his personal interests and political career ahead of Ceuta’s well-being,” he publicly denounced this week.
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For its part, the party’s critical current gathered under the ReActiva brand has also expressed itself in harsh terms warning that “blaming only outward is not accountability” for the migration emergency, but “managing the image instead of the problem.” They also denounce “the pressure, direct or veiled, from regional and local executives” for socialist militants who “these days have expressed on social networks their concern, doubts or criticisms” about how the situation is being handled “to delete posts, rectify their opinion or simply remain silent.”
Nicolás Redondo Terreros, expelled from the PSOE in 2023, has clearly expressed himself, considering that the Ceuta crisis has revealed “all the misery” of Sánchez in foreign policy. In a message written on X the same day as the avalanche, the former Basque leader said that what was happening in the autonomous city “would be enough for any Government to resign” due to “the inability to defend its fellow citizens and its territory.”
At Ferraz, on the other hand, they have tried to focus on the PP, accusing it of never distinguishing “what is a national emergency from political opportunism.” “In any serious country, faced with an emergency situation, whatever it is, the opposition stands by the State. In Spain, the opposition stands in front of a camera,” they conclude.
