The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, is scheduled to preside over a ceremony this Friday for the awarding of distinctions to members of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), in the midst of the hangover from the controversy generated by the warnings about the massive influx of immigrants from Morocco to Ceuta at the end of July, according to the official agenda of the Ministry.
Robles has consistently supported the work of the intelligence services during the Ceuta crisis and remained the only member of the Executive who stated that prior warnings about the jump did occur, in contrast to the statements of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and six other Cabinet members who denied the existence of such reports.
After the declassification of the documentation related to the events that occurred in the autonomous city, it was confirmed that the CNI conveyed information to the Government Delegation in Ceuta and to the Civil Guard via WhatsApp messages. However, from Moncloa they insisted that those communications could not be considered "formal" alerts and reproached the intelligence services for not having raised the warning when it was "their competence and responsibility."
The CNI itself acknowledged, through sources disseminated by the Presidency of the Government, that it "did not anticipate the magnitude" of what happened, while Robles positioned herself alongside the agency by emphasizing that the episode was "unpredictable." In her attempt to close the controversy, the minister opened the door to self-criticism by stressing that "everything can be done better."