The information about what the Government knew before the massive entry into Ceuta adds a new element. El Español publishes that the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, received a warning from the National Intelligence Center the day before the crisis through coordination channels used by Interior and Defense agencies.
According to the exclusive, which cites sources from the Civil Guard General Staff, the information about the movements detected before the massive entry circulated through the usual coordination channels and was sent to different bodies of the Secretary of State for Security. The newspaper claims that the warnings also reached the General Directorate of Coordination and Studies and the General Directorate of International Relations and Immigration.
El Español adds that the information about the previous situation also circulated through other channels, including official emails and phone calls, and that in the previous days there was talk of the possibility of a major event at the southern border of the European Union through shared information systems. The sources cited by the newspaper indicate that those channels are fed with data from, among other agencies, Frontex, the Ministry of Defense, the National Police, and the Civil Guard.
The debate about what information the Interior received
The Minister of Territorial Policy and head of the unified command, Ángel Víctor Torres, publicly supported the version of Marlaska. During an interview on Cadena SER, he assured that there was no communication that anticipated the arrival of tens of thousands of people, although he acknowledged that during the previous days there were daily reports on the situation in Ceuta and the increase in entries.
Robles, for her part, specified during her appearance before the Defense Commission that the CNI agents stationed in Ceuta reported on July 29 about a call to try to access the city the next day. The minister also pointed out that communications from intelligence services do not necessarily have to take the form of a written report.
From Moncloa it has also been denied that there was an oral warning from the CNI in the terms described by Robles, while the Government Delegation in Ceuta has maintained that it did not receive any report that would allow anticipating what happened. The next appearance of Marlaska in Congress must address the information that the Interior Ministry had before the massive entry and the different versions that arose within the Executive itself.