Felipe VI gathers Robles and the military leadership to analyze the situation in Ceuta

To organize an official visit of the King to Ceuta, there is no specific “parliamentary procedure” nor a formal authorization from the Cortes Generales. It is fundamentally a political and organizational decision of the Government, coordinated with the Household of H.M. the King and the authorities of the autonomous city, which may be subject to parliamentary control and debate, but does not legally depend on a prior vote of the Congress or the Senate.

1. Who decides the visit

In the Spanish constitutional order, the King always exercises his functions through the Government:

• Household of H.M. the King: proposes, negotiates the agenda and format of the visit, in dialogue with the Government.
• National Government (mainly the Presidency): politically validates the visit, coordinates security, institutional deployment, and messages.
• There is no enabling parliamentary agreement: neither the Constitution nor the Rules of the Congress or the Senate foresee that visits of the Head of State within the national territory require prior authorization or agreement of the Chambers.

2. Usual governmental and institutional procedures

In practice, the visit is arranged through internal coordination acts and, if applicable, organizational agreements, but usually does not require laws or specific royal decrees. Schematically:

• Political decision: agreement between the Royal Household and the Presidency of the Government on date, duration, profile of the visit (institutional, commemorative, social, economic…) and political message.
• Interministerial coordination:
  • Ministry of the Presidency: coordinates governmental agenda, speeches, and presence of Government members.
  • Ministry of the Interior: designs the security device (National Police, Civil Guard), in coordination with
  • Government Delegation in Ceuta, which is the “head” of the State in the territory for coordination of state services.
  • Other ministries may be involved if there are visits to facilities within their scope (Defense, Education, Health, etc.).
• Relation with the Autonomous City of Ceuta:
  • Contact between Presidency/Royal Household and the Presidency of the Autonomous City to define joint acts: official reception, speeches, visits to local institutions.
  • Logistical and protocol agreements: routes, invitations, institutional and social representation.
• Formal instruments:
  • Usually, administrative and internal organization decisions suffice (service orders, security instructions, invitation letters).
  • Only if the visit is linked to the approval of decorations, appointments, or other formal acts of the King, could royal decrees or other provisions intervene, but not for the mere visit itself.

3. (Indirect) role of the Cortes Generales

Although Parliament does not “authorize” the visit, it can influence and express itself through political control means:

• Parliamentary questions to the Government (oral or written) about the opportunity, cost, agenda, or political meaning of the visit.
• Interpellations and motions in which parliamentary groups assess the Government’s policy regarding Ceuta and, within that framework, the convenience of visits by the King.
• Non-legislative proposals or political declarations in Congress, Senate, or in the Ceuta Assembly itself urging the Government to promote or avoid certain institutional gestures.
• Requests for information about security devices, budget, official guests, etc.

These instruments do not legally block the visit but can politically condition it (generating support, criticism, or pressure to modify its format).

4. Difference with other scenarios

It is important to distinguish:

• Visits within Spain (like Ceuta): governed by the internal organization of the State, with the Government playing a leading role and without parliamentary authorization.
• State trips abroad: involve international relations, treaties, or agreements; here the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervenes more heavily and there may be more formalized Council of Ministers decisions, although prior authorization from the Cortes is also not required.

5. In summary

Organizing an official visit of the King to Ceuta mainly requires:

• Political agreement between Government and Royal Household.
• Coordination with the Government Delegation and Autonomous City.
• Security device and protocol decided by the Executive.

The Cortes Generales intervene only through political control and debate, but not as an enabling procedure nor through a specific formal authorization.

In the Spanish constitutional system, the King has a relevant but essentially symbolic and arbitral role in matters of Defense and national security. He does not exercise the political or operational command of the Armed Forces, which corresponds to the Government, but he does hold certain formal and representative functions derived from the Constitution.

1. Head of State and symbol of unity (art. 56 CE)

The starting point is Article 56 of the Constitution, which defines the King as Head of State, symbol of its unity and permanence, and assigns him the function of arbitrating and moderating the regular functioning of institutions. In matters of Defense and national security, this position translates into:

• He represents Spain abroad when dealing with security, defense, or military cooperation issues, always under the guidance and responsibility of the Government.
• His role is institutional and of State continuity, not political direction of Defense.

2. Supreme command of the Armed Forces (art. 62.h CE)

Article 62, which lists the King's powers, states in letter h) that he holds the supreme command of the Armed Forces. This expression must be understood in a parliamentary context:

• The “supreme command” is honorary and institutional: the King is the highest symbolic authority of the Armed Forces.
• The effective direction of defense policy and the conduct of military operations correspond to the Government (art. 97 CE) and, within it, to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense.
• This symbolic leadership is embodied in acts such as presiding over military parades, flag oaths, officer commissions, and other highest military ceremonies.

3. Declaration of war and peace, and defense treaties (arts. 62 and 63 CE)

The Constitution reserves certain formal functions to the King related to major decisions in security matters:

• Declaration of war and peace: Article 63.3 establishes that it corresponds to the King, with prior authorization from the Cortes Generales, to declare war and make peace. In practice:
  • The political decision is made by the Government, which promotes parliamentary authorization.
  • The King performs the formal act of declaration, without the capacity to decide against the will of the Government and Cortes.
• International treaties: the King expresses the State's consent to be bound by treaties (art. 63.2), which includes defense agreements, military alliances, or security treaties:
  • The negotiation and orientation of these treaties are the Government's responsibility.
  • Parliament may have a role in authorization or control, depending on the type of treaty.

4. Sanction and promulgation of defense norms (art. 62.a CE)

Although he does not decide the content of laws or royal decree-laws, the King must sanction and promulgate the norms approved by the Cortes Generales, including:

• Organic and ordinary laws on National Defense or Armed Forces.
• Other norms impacting national security (regulation of states of alarm, exception, and siege, organization of security forces, etc.).

This function is also formal: he cannot veto or modify the content of the norms sent by the Cortes, acting under the principle of inviolability and irresponsibility, and his acts are always countersigned by the Government or the Cortes.

5. Role in national security and crisis states

The regulation of the national security system and the states of alarm, exception, and siege assigns political direction to the Government and control to Parliament. The King:

• May intervene symbolically (messages to the Nation, presence at high-level meetings or acts) to reinforce unity and institutional legitimacy in critical situations.
• Does not decide the activation or content of emergency measures; those decisions are political and parliamentary.

6. Countersignature and responsibility

All the King's powers in Defense and national security are subject to countersignature (art. 64 CE): they must also be signed by the Prime Minister or the competent minister. The effect is crucial:

• The King's acts are inviolable and politically irresponsible.
• Political and legal responsibility lies with the countersigning authority (Government or, if applicable, President of the Congress).

In summary, the King performs a symbolic and formal headship role in Defense and national security — honorary supreme command of the Armed Forces, formal declaration of war and peace, signing treaties, and sanctioning laws — while the political and operational direction lies entirely with the Government under the control of the Cortes Generales.

Based on the information available in the sources consulted this session, it can be stated with certainty that Juan Jesús Vivas Lara is the current president of the Autonomous City of Ceuta and has held the position continuously since 2001, but those sources do not explicitly specify in which specific electoral process he first obtained the presidency. They also do not provide, with sufficient detail, the exact seat distribution by party in the Ceuta Assembly, although they do allow identification of which political forces are represented.

1. Juan Jesús Vivas's access to the presidency of Ceuta

The structural data from the consulted political actors database identify Juan Jesús Vivas Lara (person_id 4022) as:

• President of the Autonomous City of Ceuta, within the category of «Autonomous Presidency».
• Currently active position, linked to the «Presidency of the Autonomous City of Ceuta».

However, that same database does not store details of the specific electoral process (year and type of election) in which he initially assumed office, nor the full history of previous terms. Attempts to reconstruct it from:

• Historical administrative office records.
• Official appointments published in bulletins.
• Information on legislatures associated with the Ceuta Assembly.

only show the current position of president, without start dates or explicit references to specific autonomous or municipal elections in Ceuta.

The only clear temporal reference comes from a piece in the newspaper Demócrata about the inauguration of the new maritime terminal in Ceuta, where Vivas is described as the “longest-serving PP leader in office since 2001”, referring to the city presidency (link). This confirms that:

• Vivas has served as president of Ceuta continuously since 2001.
• His tenure at the head of Ceuta's Government extends from then until the present.

However, neither that news item nor the other materials analyzed specify “in which elections” — that is, in which specific electoral call — he first obtained the presidency. Nor is there, in the appointment records, a decree or designation agreement from the initial moment that would allow associating it with specific elections. Therefore, with the information actually available in these sources, it is only possible to state:

• That he has been president of the Autonomous City of Ceuta since 2001.
• That he maintains the position in the current autonomous legislature.
• But it is not possible to rigorously document, based on these databases, the specific election in which he first obtained that presidency.

2. Current composition of the Ceuta Assembly

The consulted sources do allow clear identification of which parties have representation in the Ceuta Assembly in the legislature resulting from the 2023 autonomous elections. In a Demócrata news article about polls in Ceuta, describing both the Board of Spokespersons and the chamber's balances, it is indicated that the Assembly includes:

• People's Party (PP).
• Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE).
• Vox.
• The localist party Movement for Dignity and Citizenship (MDyC).
• The localist party Ceuta Ya!.

One of these pieces, analyzing a poll after the migration crisis, takes as reference the results of the 2023 autonomous elections and mentions, for example, that:

• Ceuta Ya! “goes from 10.03% obtained in the 2023 autonomous elections to 12.2%” and that this change “would allow it to go from two to three seats.”
• MDyC would lose “one of its three current deputies” to remain with two in the projection.

From this, it can be inferred that, in the Assembly resulting from 2023, Ceuta Ya! had two seats and MDyC had three, but the fragment does not detail the number of deputies of PP, PSOE, and Vox in the current chamber. And in the texts accessible this session, no official table or paragraph explicitly showing the complete distribution of the 25 seats of the Ceuta Assembly is found.

Consequently, with the sources used here, it can be answered with certainty that:

• The Ceuta Assembly is composed, in the current legislature, of five groups: PP, PSOE, Vox, MDyC, and Ceuta Ya!.
• The parties MDyC and Ceuta Ya! have, respectively, three and two seats.

But it is not possible to offer, without resorting to information not included in the results consulted this session, the exact number of seats of PP, PSOE, and Vox. For a closed numerical breakdown, it would be necessary to refer directly to the official electoral results data of Ceuta's autonomous elections (for example, through the Ministry of the Interior or the Autonomous City itself).

In summary: the available data allow establishing that Juan Jesús Vivas has presided over Ceuta since 2001 and that the current Assembly is composed of PP, PSOE, Vox, MDyC, and Ceuta Ya!, but do not allow precise documentation of either the exact electoral call in which he first obtained the presidency or the complete seat distribution by party.