The question about the Ceuta crisis has changed in just a few hours. Until the publication of the declassified documents, the political battle revolved around an apparently binary issue: whether the Government had received warnings before more than 70,000 people crossed the border on July 30 and 31.
Now that the CNI communicated on July 29 to the Government Delegation that a call was circulating on social media to enter the next day "by fence and sea." It also conveyed information to the Civil Guard and sent an urgent note to Moroccan intelligence services about calls coinciding with the Throne Day.
This is no longer just about who knew something. It's about who was supposed to interpret those signs, determine their seriousness, and ensure that the warning rose through the structure of the State.
And that is where the political sequence of Wednesday becomes relevant. Sánchez had begun to build the framework six days earlier.
The strategy was not born yesterday
When he appeared before Congress on September 3, Sánchez claimed to have reviewed reports, messages, and notes received in the days leading up to the crisis and stated that none had anticipated "either the scale or the probability" of what ultimately occurred.
He also established a difference that would end up being central six days later: detecting an increase in entries was not equivalent to anticipating the arrival of tens of thousands of people in a few hours.
This data forces us to qualify any reading that presents Wednesday's events as an improvised reaction from the Government after discovering what the documents contained. Moncloa knew the material before publishing it. Sánchez did too.
What happened on Wednesday was an escalation.
First movement of Wednesday: Sánchez puts the problem in anticipation
At 11:00 a.m., Sánchez was interviewed on Mañaneros 360, from TVE. The documentation had not yet been published.
Esther Palomera directly asked him if any department had been able to raise an alarm that it did not.
The president responded that the reports had detected a "slight peak" in arrivals by swimming, but insisted that it was about hundreds of people and not the more than 70,000 who ultimately crossed.
And he placed self-criticism at a specific point: Spain needs to improve its ability to anticipate phenomena of this nature and have a more sophisticated intelligence to understand movements that arise and grow in the digital environment. He still did not accuse the CNI of having failed in its responsibility, but the ground was defined: the problem had been in anticipation.
Second movement: the documents show that there were indeed warnings
The publication of the 40 documents yesterday afternoon inevitably altered the discussion.
The official repository of Moncloa includes reports and communications from the National Police, Civil Guard, CNI, and CIFAS and allows reconstructing what information circulated during July and to which organizations.
One of the most compromised elements appears on July 29.
At 13:52, the CNI informed the Government Delegation that there was a call to enter Ceuta the next day "by fence and sea." It also reported two groups that totaled approximately 180,000 followers.
The figure did not mean that 180,000 people were going to show up at the border. It was the potential reach of the groups in which the calls circulated.
But the information contained three specific elements: place, date, and planned methods of entry.
That same day, the CNI also warned the Civil Guard and sent an urgent communication to the Moroccan intelligence services about the calls.
That is why the initial formulation that "no one warned" is no longer enough to describe what happened.
There were warnings. What did not happen, according to the subsequent explanation from the Executive, was an assessment that estimated that that call could lead to an episode of the dimensions of July 30.
Third movement: Moncloa narrows the focus and points to the chain of command
After the documents became known, the politically most important piece of the day appeared. Moncloa maintained that the communications from the CNI never constituted a formal alert about an entry of such magnitude.
And it added something much more concrete: the service did not elevate that information through its own chain of command.
"An agency that believes that a massive entry is going to occur the next day does not communicate via instant messaging: it elevates it," government sources conveyed. The conclusion from those same sources was direct: "That is their responsibility and their competence."
The Government does not deny that the CNI was aware of the calls. What it maintains is that the very behavior of the Center demonstrates that neither did its analysts interpret that as a threat comparable to the one that ultimately occurred.
Sánchez himself wraps up the argument at night
Hours later, the president returned to the documents, this time from his X account.
Sánchez stated that the information known "in no way constituted or could be interpreted as an indicator of the scale, nature, or probability of what happened afterwards."
And he expressly returned to the internal course of the warning. The CNI, he asserted, "limited itself" to conveying it through messages and a brief call to the Cabinet of the Government Delegation and to a unit of the Civil Guard, but "did not issue any major alert" to its chain of command.
The CNI's version
The most crucial movement came from the intelligence service itself.
The Center defended after the reactions to the publication of the declassified reports in the afternoon that the documentation demonstrated that it had "issued information about a campaign on social media calling for the storming of the Ceuta fence." It did not deny, therefore, having warned.
But it immediately incorporated the phrase that ended up dominating the closing of the day: "it did not anticipate the magnitude and nature" of what happened on July 30 because it was an unusual phenomenon that did not correspond to the known migration crises up to that moment.
This does not mean that the CNI has assumed political responsibility for the crisis but does imply recognizing something much more precise: it had prior information about entry calls, but did not correctly calculate the dimension that they would ultimately reach.
That is to say, they take the 'weight' of the narrative and assume it in part so that it fits into the framework that Sánchez had defended throughout the day.
But the documents and the comment do not automatically absolve the Government either. That the CNI did not anticipate the arrival of more than 70,000 people does not mean that there were no signals that required a response.
The documents show calls for a specific date, references to entries by land and sea, groups with massive dissemination, and communications with both Spanish and Moroccan authorities.
The documentation also reveals increasing pressure in the days prior. There is even an apparent paradox that will need to be clarified.
Moncloa uses as an argument that the CNI did not issue a formal alert upwards within the Spanish structure. However, the Center did send an urgent communication to its Moroccan counterparts about the calls.
Therefore, the investigation into responsibilities cannot simply conclude that the intelligence service did not foresee the final figure. The question is what level of reaction the information that did exist required.
Robles is on the other side of the battle
Margarita Robles' position introduces another uncomfortable element for the Government.
The Minister of Defense had publicly defended that the CNI carried out the work it was supposed to and that the available information was shared with the Security Forces and with the Government Delegation.
The documents confirm at least that second part: there were communications from the CNI with those structures.
The Morocco problem is also not closed
The documents incorporate another necessary caution. The Spanish reports described the passivity of Moroccan forces at certain moments of the crisis, but also noted that the forces of the neighboring country became overwhelmed and later collaborated in regaining control and accepting returns.
A report from CIFAS considered it likely that the Moroccan authorities were not actively favoring the wave, although it described the behavior of some personnel on the ground as negligent and passive.
The documents, therefore, also do not allow for a definitive resolution of the question of any potential direct participation from Rabat.
From "who knew" to "who should have elevated it"
The publication of the papers has shifted the political boundary of the crisis.
The CNI can maintain that it warned. Moncloa can respond that the CNI itself did not consider those warnings serious enough to elevate them. Interior can assert that it did not receive a forecast capable of anticipating the scenario of 70,000 entries, and Defense can argue that its services fulfilled the function of collecting and sharing the available information.
That is why the central point is no longer to demonstrate whether or not there were signals before July 30. The documents confirm that there were.
The unknown now lies within the machinery of the State: who received each signal, what assessment was made, who had the capacity to raise the alert level, and why that information did not end up transforming into a proportional response to what was about to happen.
The responsibilities: the CNI now enters the center of the board
The day of Wednesday has had an evident political effect: Moncloa has placed the chain of evaluation and elevation of intelligence at the center of the discussion.
This makes the CNI a key piece in any reconstruction of responsibilities.
But it does not yet allow us to conclude that responsibility ends there.
The Center is attached to the Ministry of Defense, while the operational protection of the border also involves Interior, Guardia Civil, National Police, and the Government Delegation. The documents show that the information passed through several of those actors. It is no longer about who knew that something could happen in Ceuta.
The question is who had to decide that that "something" could turn into a state crisis.