The police blow up Pedro Sánchez's strategy

MadridIf there has been a common denominator in the narrative that all the ministers and the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, have given about the Ceuta crisis, it is to absolve Morocco of responsibility for the massive entry of migrants on July 30 and 31. "The collaboration was instantaneous," said the head of the executive on Monday and, in private, Moncloa insisted this Tuesday that it had absolutely no indication that the Moroccan regime could be actively or passively behind what happened. In fact, the Spanish government has opted to point to the far-right international, Russia, and Israel. However, the police have blown up Moncloa's narrative and strategy. The fact that it has sent a report to the Audiencia Nacional pointing to the Moroccan security forces puts Spanish President Pedro Sánchez on the spot (as never before). And just one day before his expected appearance in the Congress of Deputies to account for the management of the crisis.

The Spanish government's first reaction to this information was to assure that it had no knowledge of it. After a dozen ministerial appearances, the Ministry of the Interior claims to have learned through a media outlet, El Español, that there is a report from the National Center for Immigration and Borders that points to Moroccan security forces as instigators of the crisis on July 30 and 31 at the Ceuta border. A document that has been sent to the National Court, but whose content the Ministry of the Interior and its head, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, are now demanding to know.

Until now, Sánchez's intention was to provide a detailed timeline of events since July 30 during his appearance in Congress on Thursday, to "refute fake news" and provide "transparency." But how will his version fit with that of the National Police? Why has the Spanish government defended the Moroccan regime so fiercely despite more than reasonable doubts about its diligence in controlling the border? Could 70,000 people mobilize towards the same point without the Moroccan regime being aware of it? If the Spanish government still doesn't know what happened, wouldn't it have been more prudent to be cautious about the Alawite role? How will Sánchez handle the questions that both his partners and the opposition, who pointed to the Alawite monarchy, will ask him about who was behind the massive entry? Has Moncloa prioritized agreeing on the version with Morocco before explaining what may have happened? What is the Spanish government afraid of?

Sánchez's problem is not just one of narrative in a crisis whose full extent we have not yet grasped, but rather that two key issues for the State government are now in question: Spain's appeasement foreign policy that the President decided to adopt with Morocco from 2022 onwards (with the Western Sahara shift, still not properly explained, as the prime example), and the control (or rather, lack of control) that the executive has over the most relevant levers of power. A well-informed source on how things work predicts: "The professionalism of the State services is at stake. Things will come out." It will be difficult for Pedro Sánchez to get out of this one.