The CNI could warn and not warn at the same time. That is the explanation with which the spokesperson of the PSOE in Congress, Patxi López, has tried to make compatible the conflicting versions of Margarita Robles and Fernando Grande-Marlaska regarding the information that the Government had before the massive entry of migrants in Ceuta.
According to López, the Intelligence services could have warned of movements of people and a possible entry by sea, but without anticipating that the episode would reach an extraordinary dimension. "Both versions can be true at the same time," he stated this Wednesday in Congress.
The response introduces a new nuance in the political crisis opened within the Executive. Defense maintains that the CNI informed of a specific call the day before. Interior denies that there was information capable of anticipating what happened. La Moncloa, however, has gone further by also denying that the oral warning described by Robles is recorded.
Schrödinger's cat enters the CNI
The thought experiment posed by physicist Erwin Schrödinger places a cat inside a box and allows it to be considered alive and dead simultaneously as long as it is not opened to check its state.
In the political version constructed by the PSOE, the box contains the warning from the CNI. Intelligence would have alerted to possible movements towards Ceuta, as Robles claims, but not of an entry of tens of thousands of people, as Marlaska and Ángel Víctor Torres defend.
"Surely the National Intelligence Center warns that there may be a passage of people," pointed out Patxi López. According to the socialist spokesperson, an entry by sea was also possible because "it seems that was what was moving on social media" in the days prior.
However, he believes that the CNI possibly did not warn of the magnitude that the crisis would ultimately reach. "If that information existed, the foresight, the resources they would have put in place, both from police and Civil Guard, as well as from the Army itself, would have been infinitely greater than those that were put in place," he argued.
Robles assures that the CNI communicated a call
Margarita Robles stated during her appearance in Congress that the CNI agents assigned in Ceuta had fulfilled their duty and shared their analyses with the Security Forces and the Government Delegation.
The Minister of Defense specified that on July 29, the Intelligence services reported to the Delegation about a call to attempt to swim to the autonomous city the next day, coinciding with a holiday in Morocco.
Robles also pointed out that Intelligence communications do not necessarily have to materialize in a written report. Her version states that there was a prior warning, although it does not attribute to the CNI an exact forecast of the number of people who would end up crossing the border.
Marlaska and Torres deny an alert about the magnitude
Marlaska maintains that the Government did not receive any report that would allow for the prediction of a massive entry. The Minister of the Interior argues that if there had been an alert of that nature, the Executive would have activated extraordinary measures.
Ángel Víctor Torres, responsible for the unified command for the crisis, has supported this version on Wednesday. The minister explained that the evolution of the situation was communicated daily and that an increase of about a thousand entries had been detected during the previous seven days.
"There was no communication that we were going to have an arrival of tens of thousands of people," Torres has assured. His formulation, like that of Marlaska, denies a warning about the final dimension, but does not expressly rule out that information about smaller movements or calls could have circulated.
Torres's support for the Interior had left Robles isolated within the Government due to the warnings from the CNI. Patxi López's intervention now attempts to build a middle position that allows both versions to be considered compatible.
Moncloa keeps the box closed
The main obstacle for Patxi López's explanation lies in the version conveyed from Moncloa. Sources from the Presidency cited by elDiario.es deny that there were written reports or oral warnings from the CNI directed to the Delegation or to any member of the Government about something similar to what occurred.
The Government Delegation in Ceuta has also denied having received a report warning of what was going to happen. It does acknowledge communications about the daily evolution of entries by sea.
The conflict is no longer limited, therefore, to determining whether the CNI calculated the magnitude correctly. Robles maintains that on July 29 a specific call was communicated. La Moncloa denies that this oral notice is recorded. Let us remember that Schrödinger's experiment ends when the box is opened: the superposition collapses and the cat appears alive or dead. At some point, the CNI's box will also be opened: one version will survive and the other will die. It remains to be seen which one.
Patxi López admits that he does not know what happened
Asked about the actions of the secret services, López has avoided assigning responsibilities. "I am saying that I don't know," he emphasized.
The socialist spokesperson has suggested as a possibility that the CNI detected movements in networks or attempts to enter by sea, but that the extraordinary dimension that the crisis would reach was not calibrated.