The Minister of Defense remained seated and practically without applauding after the first intervention of the Prime Minister this Thursday in Congress to give explanations about the Ceuta crisis. Unlike the rest of the members of the Executive and the PSOE bench, Margarita Robles did not show enthusiasm about Pedro Sánchez‘s version denying the existence of reports about the “massive entry” of 72,000 people that took place on July 30 and 31 in the autonomous city.
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In her own appearance last week in the Lower House, the head of the Armed Forces pointed out that the Spanish Intelligence services did alert about what could happen at that maritime border with Morocco. Her position contrasts with that maintained by the Ministry of the Interior, led by Fernando Grande-Marlaska, that there was no anticipation of “the magnitude” nor “what was going to happen,” but of “nothing like” the fence jump of 2021, when 10,000 immigrants entered suddenly, which is the thesis officially maintained at La Moncloa.
During his intervention, the head of the Executive emphasized this Thursday the denial that in the days prior to the avalanche there were “extraordinary warnings that anticipated what happened afterwards.” This despite the fact that, as this newspaper has published, two reports did point to the possibility of a “massive” entry and the “collapse” that was “very likely” to come in Ceuta.
Robles also did not applaud when Sánchez, from the speaker’s platform, assured that he has “nothing to hide in this matter” and that for this reason he has given the order to “publish a dossier with all the reports, all of them, so that the media and the public can examine them.” Asked later about her reaction in the corridors of Congress, the Minister of Defense declined to respond.
“We have examined all the reports, all the messages, verbal notes from the State security forces and bodies, also from our National Intelligence Center, which were sent both to the political authorities and also to the government delegation of the autonomous city of Ceuta during those days. And I can assure you that none went beyond the description of the data or the routine warning. And that none, by the way, foresaw neither the scale nor the probability of what finally happened,” Sánchez argued.
