Teresa Peramato warns the communities: the Prosecutor's Office will act if they reject minors from Ceuta

The competencies of the Attorney General of the State are mainly determined by Article 124 of the Constitution and by the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor's Office, regulated in Law 50/1981, profoundly reformed by Law 14/2003 and Law 24/2007. The Attorney General is the highest authority of the Public Prosecutor's Office and directs the entire institution under the principles of unity of action, hierarchical dependence, legality, and impartiality. Her functions combine an institutional role (relationship with the Government, General Courts, and autonomous communities), internal management (appointments, action criteria, inspection), and procedural intervention before the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and other jurisdictional bodies. Below are her main specific competencies according to this regulation.

1. Regulatory framework and constitutional position

Article 124 of the Constitution configures the Public Prosecutor's Office as a body that promotes the action of justice in defense of legality, citizens' rights, and the public interest, acting with unity of action and subject to legality and impartiality. On this basis, the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor's Office is built, approved by Law 50/1981 and successively modified, especially by Law 14/2003 and Law 24/2007, which detail the functions, organization, and statute of the Attorney General of the State.

2. Appointment, statute, and dismissal

According to the preamble of Law 24/2007, the autonomy of the Public Prosecutor's Office is reinforced by modifying the appointment and dismissal regime of the Attorney General:

• Appointment: the Government proposes the candidate, the General Council of the Judiciary is heard, and a hearing before a commission of the Congress of Deputies is held before the appointment by the King.
• Dismissal: objective causes for dismissal are introduced, eliminating the possibility of purely discretionary dismissal, aiming to guarantee a greater margin of autonomy.

3. Direction of the Public Prosecutor's Office and own structure

The Statute establishes that the Attorney General of the State directs the Attorney General's Office, which includes the Fiscal Inspection, Technical Secretariat, Support Unit, and the prosecutors of the Chamber determined by the staff. Among her competencies are:

• Proposal of appointments and promotions: she is responsible for proposing to the Government the promotions and appointments for the different positions of the Public Prosecutor's Office, after a report from the Fiscal Council and, when appropriate, hearing the senior prosecutor of the corresponding autonomous community.
• Direction of technical bodies: the Fiscal Inspection exercises functions delegated by the Attorney General; the Technical Secretariat assists doctrinally and technically and assumes functions in international judicial cooperation; the Support Unit handles institutional representation, relations with other powers, communication, and organizational analysis.
• Headship of the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office: the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office is configured “under the headship of the Attorney General of the State,” which places the Attorney General as the ultimate responsible for the Prosecutor's Office's actions in the high court.

4. Issuance of instructions, circulars, and action criteria

The principle of unity of action is practically articulated through the directing powers of the Attorney General:

• General criteria: with the support of the Board of Chamber Prosecutors, the Attorney General sets unified criteria for legal interpretation and action, and promotes reports and circulars that guide the actions of all prosecutor's offices.
• Instructions in sensitive matters: Law 24/2007 highlights that when the Attorney General is to issue instructions in matters affecting members of the Government, she must seek the intervention of the Board of Chamber Prosecutors as the highest internal legal advisory body.

5. Relations with the Government, General Courts, and autonomous communities

The Statute dedicates several provisions to the institutional aspect of the Attorney General:

• With the Government: the Government may request the Attorney General to promote actions before the courts in defense of the public interest. Communication is channeled through the Ministry of Justice (or directly from the Presidency of the Government), and the Attorney General, after hearing the Board of Chamber Prosecutors, decides on the viability of the request and communicates it with reasoning.
• Annual report: the Attorney General must submit an annual report to the Government on the activity of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the evolution of crime, crime prevention, and necessary reforms, sending copies to the General Courts and the General Council of the Judiciary, and presenting it before the Courts.
• Information to the Government: she must inform, when requested by the Executive and if there is no legal obstacle, on matters involving the Public Prosecutor's Office and on the general functioning of the Administration of Justice, and may be called to the Council of Ministers in exceptional cases.
• Relationship with autonomous communities: the autonomous government bodies that request the action of the Public Prosecutor's Office in defense of the public interest do so through the senior prosecutor of the community, who refers it to the Attorney General, who decides “always adhering to the principle of legality.”

6. Procedural functions and before the Constitutional Court

As head of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Attorney General assumes a central role in the procedural functions attributed to the Public Prosecutor's Office by the Statute, including: exercising criminal and civil actions arising from crimes, intervening in civil proceedings with social interest or affecting minors or vulnerable persons, ensuring procedural protection of victims, and participating in proceedings before the Court of Auditors, contentious-administrative, and labor orders. Additionally, the Statute recognizes the Public Prosecutor's Office's power to file constitutional protection appeals and intervene in Constitutional Court proceedings; the Prosecutor's Office before the Constitutional Court is integrated into the organization hierarchically directed by the Attorney General.

7. Internal supervision and promotion

Finally, the Attorney General exercises hierarchical direction over the entire prosecutorial career, supported by the Fiscal Inspection and the Fiscal Council. The latter, chaired by the Attorney General, develops criteria for unity of action, reports on appointments, participates in promotions, and resolves disciplinary proceedings and appeals, placing the Attorney General at the center of the internal organization, evaluation, and responsibility system of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

An autonomous community does not have a recognized “free veto right” in state regulations to reject transfers of unaccompanied foreign minors from Ceuta. The legal framework prioritizes the best interests of the minor and territorial co-responsibility, so the community can only oppose in a limited way, alleging legal (not merely political) reasons and using the channels of hearing, inter-administrative cooperation, and recourse to the courts. In practice, the State retains competence in immigration and initial placement, while the communities manage protection and guardianship once the minor is transferred to their territory.

Basic regulatory framework

The rules on unaccompanied foreign minors (MENAs) and their territorial distribution are based on several state norms:

• Organic Law 4/2000 on Foreigners, which specifically regulates unaccompanied foreign minors and State–CCAA cooperation (text of LO 4/2000).
• Organic Law 1/1996 on Legal Protection of Minors, which sets rights for all minors, including foreigners, and the organization of protection measures (LO 1/1996).
• Organic Law 8/2021, which strengthens the comprehensive protection approach to childhood against violence and cooperation among administrations (LO 8/2021).
• Framework Protocol on MENAs of 2014, approved by Agreement among several ministries and the Prosecutor's Office and published by Resolution of October 13, 2014 (Framework Protocol MENAs).
• Royal Decree 881/2021, regulating subsidies for the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors from Ceuta in other autonomous communities (RD 881/2021).
• Royal Decree 767/2022, on subsidies to Canary Islands and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla for the care and reception of unaccompanied migrant minors (RD 767/2022).
• Constitutional Court Judgment 43/2025, annulling provisions of Canary Islands that sought to exclude its protective function regarding certain migrant minors (STC 43/2025).

Placement and transfers according to the Foreigners Law

Organic Law 4/2000, after its reforms, foresees that in situations of “extraordinary migratory contingency” there is a Solidarity Response Plan, which includes the distribution of unaccompanied foreign minors among autonomous communities. The consulted excerpts highlight that:

• The minor is registered in the Registry of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors.
• In these situations, the minor “will be transferred” within a maximum period of 15 days to the destination autonomous community or city, according to legally established criteria (articles like “35 bis” and “35 quinquies” of LO 4/2000, according to the obtained extracts).
• The placement and transfer resolution is issued by the competent body of the General State Administration, and the destination community and the minor must be heard, “giving notice to the Public Prosecutor's Office” to guarantee their best interest.

In this scheme, the destination community has a right to be heard, but the norm does not expressly recognize a veto power; the final decision on placement is adopted by the General State Administration, within its exclusive competence in immigration (art. 149.1.2 CE, also cited in RD 881/2021).

Protection of minors and inter-autonomous transfers

LO 1/1996 establishes that foreign minors have the right to education, health care, and social services under the same conditions as Spanish minors, and explicitly mentions unaccompanied foreign minors as a particularly vulnerable group.

The law foresees that:

• When an autonomous public entity assumes the guardianship of a foreign minor, the General State Administration must facilitate documentation and residence authorization promptly.
• Transfers of minors between autonomous communities (e.g., to centers in another CCAA) are carried out “with the agreement of both Autonomous Communities,” without the need to adopt new protection measures in the destination, according to the consulted extracts.

This last point is important: in “classic” transfers of minors under guardianship between CCAAs, the mechanism is negotiated and requires agreement; but in the specific case of the initial placement of MENAs in extraordinary migratory contingency, the Foreigners Law and the state distribution decision with hearing apply, not an ordinary bilateral agreement.

Framework Protocol and specific agreements on Ceuta

The Framework Protocol on MENAs coordinates actions from location to the provision of autonomous protection services and documentation. It is conceived as a “pattern of good practices” to be complemented with territorial protocols; it does not introduce a legal title for a community to reject minors, but coordination mechanisms.

RD 881/2021 regulates subsidies for the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors from Ceuta and makes clear that:

• Its purpose is to finance “the reception of migrant unaccompanied children and adolescents from the city of Ceuta in other autonomous communities.”
• It is based on reasons of “public, social, and humanitarian interest.”

It is financing for a distribution already politically agreed within bodies such as the Territorial Council of Social Services or the Sectorial Conference on Childhood, but the subsidy regulation itself does not recognize an express right of a community to refuse participation once there is an agreement.

Real margin to reject transfers

In light of this framework and STC 43/2025 (which annuls a Canary Islands agreement that sought to exclude certain migrant minors from its protection system), the requirements and limits can be summarized as follows:

• The community must participate in cooperation bodies (Sectorial Conferences, territorial councils) where quotas and distribution criteria are negotiated. Its opposition must be articulated there and in the prior hearing phase before the placement resolution.
• It can make allegations when heard (e.g., about lack of real reception capacity or risk to the best interests of those minors in its territory), but LO 4/2000 does not turn those allegations into an automatic veto.
• If it considers that the state decision violates its competences or the best interests of the minor, it can resort to the contentious-administrative or, if applicable, constitutional route. Unless judicially suspended, the state resolution is enforceable.
• It cannot enact internal norms or protocols that, de facto, exclude it from the duty of protection of these minors, because the Constitutional Court has already considered a similar strategy in Canary Islands unconstitutional (STC 43/2025).

In summary, legally the margin to “reject” a transfer from Ceuta is very limited: there is a right to be heard, to negotiate, and to challenge decisions, but not a normative power to close the territory against minors transferred under the Foreigners Law and state solidarity response agreements.

Based on available information from official sources and the newspaper Demócrata, there is no public and closed list detailing, community by community, how many minors have been specifically transferred from Ceuta in recent years. It is known that several communities have begun to receive minors within the framework of the new state relocation system (which groups arrivals from Ceuta, Canary Islands, and Melilla), and that Navarra, for example, plans to host up to 118 minors from Canary Islands and Ceuta in one year. There are also distribution projections placing Madrid, Andalusia, and the Valencian Community as main recipients in the future, but these are indicative calculations and not a balance of transfers already executed. In summary: there are data on capacities and forecasts, but not a reliable breakdown of “how many minors from Ceuta each community has received.”

Communities that have hosted (or committed to host) minors arriving from Ceuta

The consulted sources only clearly identify one territorialized figure explicitly mentioning Ceuta as origin, and even then jointly with Canary Islands:

• Navarra: Counselor Carmen Maeztu announced that the Chartered Community will receive gradually 118 unaccompanied minors “from Canary Islands and Ceuta” over 12 months, coordinated with the Ministry of Childhood, without breakdown by territory of origin, according to Demócrata in this news.
• Other communities: the Government itself acknowledges that the first formal transfer under the new system has been that of a minor arrived in Ceuta transferred to another community, but without identifying which one, according to the political analysis of Demócrata.

Additionally, various notes from the central Government explain that the relocation mechanism approved after the reform of the Foreigners Law is designed to transfer minors from territories in “extraordinary migratory contingency” —Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla— to all autonomous communities:

• Rego declared this contingency in Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla.
• The Ministry of Territorial Policy reported that the administrative process for the first relocations of minors arriving after that declaration was completed, with Ceuta and Melilla as departure territories and several communities already assigned as destinations, but without detailing how many minors would go to each, in this note and this other reference.

That is, we know the distribution is underway and affects several autonomies, but figures by community and specific origin (Ceuta, Canary Islands, or Melilla) are not published.

Capacity and distribution projections (not yet executed)

To understand which communities will have more weight in future reception, two types of data are relevant:

• Ordinary reception capacity: Royal Decree 556/2026 sets 17,081 places in Spain as a whole and details how many correspond to each community. Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid, and the Valencian Community concentrate more than 59% of that capacity, according to Demócrata in this BOE analysis.
• Political distribution projections: documents handled by the Ministry of Childhood in negotiations with Junts estimated that the Community of Madrid would receive about 806 minors, Andalusia 795, and the Valencian Community 478; and that Catalonia (27), Balearic Islands (59), and the Basque Country (88) would be among the lowest due to their “previous reception effort,” according to this report. Another piece from El Mundo mentioned that Catalonia would host between 20 and 30 minors and Madrid “more than 700” within the pact with Junts.

However, these are global projections of minors to be relocated from Canary Islands and Ceuta (and, in some cases, also Melilla), not an already executed balance nor a breakdown of “this comes from Ceuta, this from Canary Islands.” The information itself insists that “there are no definitive numbers.”

Why there is no clear breakdown by community and Ceuta origin

There are two main reasons why it is not possible to precisely answer “which communities have received minors from Ceuta and how many each”:

• The relocation system is individualized: each minor is registered, interviewed, the Prosecutor's Office intervenes, and their best interest is decided before transfer, as Demócrata details describing the protocol in Ceuta in this report and this explanation of the procedure. This means data move case by case and are not always published in aggregated blocks.
• The central Government has acknowledged that it does not have an updated and homogeneous state figure of unaccompanied foreign minors, which is why Youth and Childhood requested detailed data from all communities on minors hosted and available places in 2025 (data request note). Until this system consolidates and complete annual balances are published, the level of detail will remain limited.

In parallel, funds have been approved to strengthen arrival territories (Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla, and also Balearic Islands) and to finance reception in other communities, as various government notes record —for example, 35 million for 2024 explained by PSOE in this statement or 15 million for Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla announced by Minister Rego in this note.

With all this, the conclusion is that, to date, it can only be stated with certainty that Navarra has committed to hosting up to 118 minors between Canary Islands and Ceuta and that at least one individual transfer from Ceuta to another community under the new system has occurred. No further disaggregated information is available in the consulted sources to list, one by one, all recipient communities and the minors exclusively from Ceuta each has assumed.

Other links cited in the information

• Migratory crisis in Ceuta (Demócrata)
• Ceuta raises to a thousand the tutored minors (Demócrata)
• 25 million for minors in Ceuta (Demócrata)
• Distribution of minors and political front (Demócrata)
• Andalusia's opposition to distribution (Demócrata)
• Prosecutor's Office warning (Demócrata)
• Commitment with Ceuta and legal reform (MPT)
• Sánchez's appearance in Ceuta
• Distribution of 22 million to arrival territories
• Strategic plan for migrant childhood
• Economic allocation for minors in Ceuta (Moncloa)
• Economic allocation for minors in Ceuta (MPT)
• Position of Ceuta's PP on distribution
• Statements from the Basque Government