The brand-new mayoral candidate for Aliança Catalana in Vic, Elisenda Carrera, was until May the Councilor for International Cooperation as a representative of Ara Vic (PDeCat) in a municipal coalition government led by Junts. Rumors of her link to the far-right party Aliança, which ARA already published had been in contact with, precipitated her resignation from the local executive to become an independent councilor, but now she has taken the definitive step to head the Vic candidacy. The fact is that the work she carried out as a councilor clashes head-on with the party's discourse against international cooperation. What does the party leader, Sílvia Orriols, think about the subsidies for "migration and climate emergency with a gender perspective" that Carrera's portfolio granted?

The massive entry of immigrants into Ceuta on July 30th has triggered an unprecedented crisis in the city itself, but also in Spain and Europe. ARA journalists Albert Diumenjó and Núria Rius Montaner have produced numerous reports on this crisis from Ceuta. They will explain what they have seen and what has surprised them, accompanied by the Head of International, Francesc Millan, who will offer a geopolitical perspective. Both will answer the questions that readers will have sent us.

At the border that a month ago leaked from all sides with the massive entry of more than 80,000 people, normality now reigns, beyond the presence of some of the immigrants who crossed it illegally, who wait to see if someone gives them food or money. The traffic at this point between Ceuta and Morocco –the El Tarajal crossing– is constant; thousands of people cross it every day, whether to go to work, visit relatives, or go sightseeing.

One of the secondary protagonists of Pedro Sánchez's appearance at the Congress of Deputies to give explanations for the management of the Ceuta crisis has been the repeated demand by Junts, Bildu and the PNV for the Spanish government to transfer immigration powers to Catalonia and the Basque Country. ERC has not made any reference to it, but also supports it. The one who opened the door was Miriam Nogueras: “We want them so that Catalonia stops paying for the bad decisions of Spanish governments and starts doing the work that clearly has not been done,” she proclaimed during her speech. It was Junts who, in January 2024, placed this demand on the political agenda after wresting the commitment from the PSOE in exchange for the first three decrees of the legislature. It took a year to materialize in black and white, but the Podem veto has prevented it from prospering.

Pedro Sánchez appeared this morning in Congress and began by making a profession of Spanish identity: he recalled that the lions at the door of Congress were sculpted with bronze cast from cannons captured in Morocco in the 19th century and that Ceuta and Melilla will be Spanish “until the end of time”.He has built a narrative about the government's response, in fact, he has flooded the chamber with figures, data, days, and hours, a flood that he ended up summarizing in one figure: 72 hours after the mass entry, more than 90% of the people who entered, 63,000 people, had already returned to Morocco. And that this had been done in collaboration with Morocco. And that there was no police report warning of what was about to come:And he topped it off: he has ordered the publication of all police documents regarding prevention. He said that the government has nothing to hide.It is likely that Sánchez's explanations will not be of much use, politically. Because they arrive late, very late, weeks late, during which he has been on vacation. And because Ceuta is still not okay. And because the police report that El Español published yesterday points to Morocco, due to the passivity of the Moroccan police, and leaves Minister Marlaska exposed. Passivity that we all saw. Does the minister not control his police? Does he not have information from the police? Ceuta may be the end of Sánchez's escapade. Our journalist in Madrid, Núria Orriols, says so:“It will be difficult for him to get out of this, this time, Pedro Sánchez”.And because apart from the right and the far-right, which have long wanted him out of government and in prison, the mismanagement of Ceuta has left those who are horrified by the likely prospect of a PP and Vox government without arguments.Yesterday's demonstrations in the evening were about three things: in favor of Ceuta, against Sánchez, and making an apology for the far-right. All three things simultaneously. In what proportions? Ceuta first, yes, but it was the motive that legitimized and justified a protest. Without losing sight of the fact that when we say Ceuta we are talking about two things: the massive entry that the people of the city have been suffering for a month and the disastrous management of the Spanish government. It is a complicated panorama for Pedro Sánchez that we will see what repercussions it may end up having, but it is undoubtedly the biggest dent in the bodywork of a government that has already taken quite a few hits.Good morning.

More than 80 people, including a baby and a girl, have died on a small boat that left Gambia 26 days ago bound for the Canary Islands with 128 occupants. The vessel was rescued this Thursday at dawn drifting south of the Canary Islands, when only 44 survivors remained on board. All are men of sub-Saharan origin. Five corpses were also located, which emergency services were unable to recover due to poor weather conditions and the urgency of evacuating three of the occupants to hospitals, according to Maritime Rescue.

The rift between the Spanish government and Ceuta is total one month after the start of the migration crisis that still paralyzes the city. About 20,000 people, according to calculations by the National Police, flooded the streets of the city center this Wednesday afternoon, in the umpteenth protest against immigration and the executive of Pedro Sánchez, whom they accuse of abandonment and point to as the main person responsible for the blockade situation they experience day by day since the end of July. To the cry of "Invaders, expulsion", "Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta defends itself" and "Ceuta is Spain", a flood of Spanish and autonomous city flags filled the streets in a mobilization called to coincide with the celebration of Ceuta Day. The attendees put their heart into it, after an atypical August in which they have not been able to celebrate the festivities or go to the beach like other years due to the unprecedented situation being experienced in the Spanish enclave, where there continue to be hundreds of migrants from Morocco who want to make the jump to Europe.

Hafed had been sleeping at the doors of the Loma Colmenar emergency reception center, next to Ceuta Hospital, for six days to get a bed. He is 22 years old, from Tangier, and arrived in Spain by sea just a month ago. During this time, he has slept everywhere, especially on the street, and hoped that this Monday he would finally be allowed into one of the centers that are supposed to shelter people like him. New places were opening this Monday in this same complex. The news spread like wildfire among the migrants who have to make a living in the autonomous city, and early in the morning groups of young people began to arrive with the hope of finding shelter, even if only temporarily.

Pedro Sánchez has also returned to work, and the mainstream right-wing media headlines are charging him the bill for his holidays in the form of apocalyptic polls (for the PSOE), in which the socialists are losing everything and the sum of PP and Vox —their own propagandists already consider the sum a done deal, which until recently the PP was still trying to hide— exceeds 200 deputies in Congress. Well. Perhaps so. We have already seen these same polls, in one medium or another, or in several (but always the same ones) at other times. In the general elections of 2023, in which Sánchez ended up renewing his position as president of a coalition government. Or in the Catalan elections of 2017, when they put a photo of Inés Arrimadas with headlines that said "Presidenta".Well, we'll see. The Spanish right knows a lot about making a fuss and stirring up trouble, as has been seen throughout this August due to the migratory/humanitarian/political crisis in Ceuta. The Spanish government has made it easy for them, with a slow and cumbersome management of the situation, and even offering the spectacle of ministers disagreeing in public, as has happened with Robles and Marlaska. The government's tactic seems to have been to maintain a tone of calm and normality so as not to echo catastrophic voices, and incidentally protect Sánchez from burning himself out with the crisis by putting ministers in the firing line, but it hasn't gone well. However, surely the worst for Sánchez and his government is that they feel their hands are tied by the Moroccan government and are forced to emphasize the idea —which any observer with the naked eye realizes is false— that the Alawite regime has nothing to do with the mess. Quite the contrary, it is obvious that it is the direct cause, although it then makes gestures to make it seem like it is also part of the solution. But the call for massive entry was organized by someone, and someone also gave orders for there to be hardly any surveillance by the Moroccan police on the day of said massive entry. Not to mention the evidence that a move like this aligns perfectly with the anti-Europeanism of Trumpism and Israel, and also with that of Russia. What Mohamed VI (personally) gets out of it we don't know, but it is not out of place to suspect that he gets something out of it. And the same goes for his heir, Mulai Hassan.In his interview this Monday on SER, Sánchez underlined the “civic behaviour” and the “social and coexistence commitment” of the citizens of Ceuta. He is right here, because the majority is indeed like that. Those who go to burn immigrant camps and take to the streets or infest the networks with messages of hate are the minority, no matter how much they inflate polls. They are a minority and they are losers, including those who join in from Catalonia, and from the Balearic Islands. When we talk about welcoming, they come out with a question: “How many immigrants do you have at home?” It is a phrase as obtuse as “What does your ID card say?” or “Boys have penises and girls have vulvas.” This is their level and we must not allow them to drag us down to it.

International policy has been a battlefield that Pedro Sánchez has managed to capitalize on his favor throughout the legislature. He achieved a leadership position with the Gaza war, with the recognition of Palestine as a spearhead and with "No to war" after the attack by the United States and Israel on Iran, and he also dragged part of the European countries towards his narrative. However, where he has not achieved allies has been in migratory matters, despite the attempt to present regularization as the antithesis to Donald Trump's policy. A large part of the European Union partners did not welcome the measure, as they are immersed in a dynamic of tightening border control policies – one only needs to review the new Pact on Migration and Asylum – and the last thing they want is to give the impression that entering irregularly into the Schengen area can end up being legal. Within this framework, the crisis in Ceuta has only aggravated Pedro Sánchez's solitude in this matter.

The Pope came, Spain won the World Cup, and the eclipse arrived exactly at the scheduled time, celebrated with confetti rain by the Government (and with the no less timely failure of Rodalies in its peerless role of spoilsport), but the joy by decree ended in Ceuta. And it still stirs. And wait for it.I was able to verify the psychological impact of the news while being thousands of kilometers from home, because the images of tens of thousands of poor people disorderly entering another country produce the same primary shiver down all spines: they are invading us.It is clear that, to our horror, what still causes the most horribilis of the Spanish government, null in detection and anticipation, incredibly slow and clumsy in management, with Sánchez on vacation, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of the Interior contradicting each other, the European Union alarmed and with Aznar going there to give the speech of a thousand men, as if teaching the king how to react when the homeland is in danger. If Morocco wanted to cause another deep crisis in the Spanish government, it has succeeded again. If it has done so in coordination with Trump's agenda ("Spain is a horrible ally", "Spain is a lost cause"), it has seemed so. Even for a professional resistor like Sánchez, Ceuta may have meant the end of the escape.Meanwhile, thousands of people are struggling to survive in Ceuta, used by Morocco and rejected by Spain. Any human response must take into account that in this world of verbal and legal cruelty that presidents like the one in the United States are imposing, whatever they do to the assailants of Ceuta, they will find a way to do it to us the day they decide we are a nuisance.

The stoves in the kitchen of the NGO Luna Blanca in Ceuta continue to operate at full capacity. This is due to the arrival on July 30 and 31 of tens of thousands of people – between 70,000 and 80,000 – who crossed the border with Morocco. A few hours later, the vast majority left or were returned. At Luna Blanca, they prepare 2,750 breakfasts, 2,750 lunches, and 2,750 dinners daily, which they distribute among the migrants who continue to live in precarious conditions in the city, but at the beginning of the humanitarian crisis, they had distributed over 6,000 rations per day.

The day after the altercations and of the outbreak of violence against a migrant settlement, the committee in charge of coordinating the response to the Ceuta crisis has agreed "unanimously" on a new list of spaces to relocate immigrants who do not have accommodation in the autonomous city, according to Spanish government sources. The location of the spaces will not be made public until the list has been formally approved at the next council of ministers.

The Spanish government and the autonomous communities have agreed to give the green light to an extraordinary 25 million euros to strengthen Ceuta's resources for the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors. This was unanimously voted by the Ministers of Childhood and Youth at the sectoral conference held this Thursday. However, the communities in which Vox holds these responsibilities after agreements with the PP were not present; that is, Aragon, Castile and León, and Extremadura. In fact, the Minister of Childhood and Youth, Sira Rego, explained that they not only failed to attend the meeting but also communicated in writing that they were against the extra budgetary allocation.

Almost a month later, the Ceuta crisis is not only far from being resolved, but has led to an unprecedented internal clash within the executive between Margarita Robles, Minister of Defense and head of the CNI, and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Minister of the Interior and in charge of border surveillance. The former defended the CNI's role in the entire crisis on Tuesday and stated that they did verbally warn the Spanish government delegation of an increase in immigrant entries, without specifying the magnitude, however. The latter, on the other hand, insists that no one warned them of what was coming around July 30 – when around 70,000 people entered Ceuta by swimming – and even less so in writing. The government delegation in Ceuta even issued a statement on Tuesday to deny the minister, and this Wednesday Minister Ángel Víctor Torres, who holds the sole command of the crisis, has aligned himself with Marlaska, thus leaving Robles in a very delicate position within the executive. The PSOE spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, has tried to downplay the internal crisis by stating that

The Spanish government and the government of Ceuta continue to search for spaces to temporarily house the immigrant individuals who entered the autonomous city on July 30 and 31 and who are still living on the streets. The intention is that, once they are "contained" in temporary spaces, they can be registered and "returned" to their country of origin in accordance with the law, said the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, at a press conference this Wednesday. Torres also promised more resources to expedite procedures and facilitate returns. It should be noted that the law requires individualized files to be made and cases to be studied one by one.

The crisis in Ceuta increasingly resembles the dinosaur from Augusto Monterroso's famous tale for the Spanish government. Every day they seem to wake up hoping it has been resolved as if by magic; but no, the problem is still there and forces them to make new decisions. This morning the National Security Council will meet for the first time and the single command to manage the crisis will come into effect. The problem is that these are two decisions that would have made perfect sense in the early days of the crisis, if not the first, and not almost a month later.

Almost a month after the entry of tens of thousands of immigrants into Ceuta (which Pedro Sánchez defined as a "violation of the territorial integrity" of the State), the Spanish government will declare a "situation of interest for national security" and will agree to establish a "single command" that will be led by the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres. It will be approved at this Tuesday's cabinet meeting, the first after the summer period.

A high-voltage week for the Spanish government: with activity in Moncloa, where the first cabinet meeting after the summer break will be held, but above all with activity in Congress. Up to eight ministers from Pedro Sánchez's executive will appear to account for the management of the crisis in Ceuta, where many unknowns still remain.

More than a year after his appointment as bishop of Lleida, Daniel Palau, who is also the head of the media secretariat of the Tarraconense Episcopal Conference, speaks to ARA.