The Spanish government believes that the work of the CNI must be reviewed
Puente assures that it was an incident "without precedents"
The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility of the Spanish government, Óscar Puente, assured this Thursday on RNE that the CNI's warnings to the Government Delegation in Ceuta regarding the mass call on social media to enter the border taking advantage of the Throne Day festivities were not "clear enough" nor were they issued "with enough time" to prevent the entry.
However, he clarifies that the events of July 30 have "no precedent", and that anticipating events of such caliber is "very difficult". "Nothing of these characteristics or with this volume had ever happened at any border in the world," the minister said.
Furthermore, Puente added that beyond this year's social media call, attempts to enter through Ceuta are a recurring fact every summer. "In 2024 there were 4,000 entry attempts, and in 2025 about 3,000. This is common, and most of these attempts are thwarted by the Moroccan authorities," he stressed.
In this sense, Puente highlighted that his words are not "a criticism of the CNI", although from now on the "type of measures of the intelligence services to better read and anticipate these events" will be reviewed.
Thus, the Minister of Transport subscribes to the two self-criticisms that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, already made yesterday: that more preparation of the intelligence and information services is necessary in the face of a hybrid attack, and that more must be invested in the protection of the border taking into account the structural inequality that exists between Morocco and Ceuta. "Morocco is a country that is developing, and Ceuta is not located near one of the richest areas of the country," insisted Puente. "If we do not manage to get people on the other side of the border out of poverty, we will not be able to do anything to prevent them from trying to cross," he added.
"It was not the appropriate way"
For his part, the government delegate in Ceuta, the socialist Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, also assured this Thursday on SER that the exchange of information between the CNI and the Spanish authorities, since it was done through WhatsApp messages, was not considered either "as an alert or an appropriate channel" to transmit a threat like the one on July 30. "The CNI has its own alert chain, and that transfer of information was not the formal channel to do so," he insisted.
Furthermore, he stressed that the government took measures to stop the unusual movement that was occurring in the days prior to the border, with an increase in both land and maritime personnel. Despite everything, no preparation foresaw the entry of nearly 100,000 people because, he said, "nobody knew it would be an entry of that magnitude."
Therefore, in the same line as Puente, Pérez Triano also ensures that the next steps will consist of "finding the best reinforcement routes" both at the border and in the alert systems so that it does not happen again.
