Sumar has urged the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to provide concrete answers to the migratory crisis in Ceuta and to initiate the transfer of migrants to the Peninsula to alleviate the pressure on the autonomous city, despite the "pressures" from the European Commission for "no one" to leave the area.
At the same time, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, has distanced himself from Sánchez's words and has pointed out that Morocco has responsibility "by action and omission" in the massive entry of migrants recorded at the end of July. "The responsibility is clear," he emphasized.
In a joint appearance this Monday alongside the general coordinator of Movimiento Sumar, Rosa Martínez, representing the parties that make up the minority partner of the Executive, Urtasun defended that the transfer of migrants to the Peninsula is essential and that there is "capacity" and "sufficient places" in all the autonomous communities for their reception.
He has also criticized the "hypocrisy" of the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, considering that he limits himself to "giving lessons on what to do in Ceuta" while his regional presidents "block" the mechanisms of distribution and solidarity throughout the country. In his opinion, this is a behavior "that is not worthy of someone who aspires to preside" over Spain.
The precedent of Lampedusa in 2023
Urtasun has recalled that in 2023 Italy experienced a situation similar to that of Ceuta, when the island of Lampedusa received 114,000 migrants and the government of Giorgia Meloni decided to transfer about 64,000 of them to the Italian mainland.
"At that moment, I did not hear any official from the European Commission say that those people should not move from Lampedusa, nor did I hear any other European government, in an act of absolutely unacceptable lack of solidarity, say that those people had to stay in Lampedusa," the minister reproached.
He also described the attitude of some EU leaders in the face of this crisis as "shameful" and warned that Ceuta cannot be treated as the "backyard" of Europe, demanding that the city receive solidarity from the whole continent.
The head of Culture has insisted that it is the "moment for solutions" in Ceuta and has expressed his desire for Sánchez to head in that direction in his appearance on Thursday in Congress, as, in his opinion, the ministers of Sumar Mónica García and Sira Rego have already done during this crisis in the health and child care sectors.
In his opinion, one of the key measures must be the relocation of migrants to the Peninsula, given that the best care can be provided from centers distributed across the different autonomous communities. He has also emphasized that this route is essential for Ceuta to regain "normality" and has pointed out that the Ministry of the Interior is already aware of this position.
Relocation, "essential" for Sumar
"What we expect from the appearance is to continue providing solutions and this seems to us to be essential," Urtasun has reiterated, adding that, according to the information he has, among the newcomers there are people from Sudan, who will presumably need to be granted asylum as they are a group that usually receives international protection.
Regarding Morocco's role, the minister has limited himself to emphasizing that the Maghreb country has a share of responsibility, avoiding direct reproaches to Sánchez, who in an interview on Cadena Ser dissociated Rabat from the massive entry of migrants. Urtasun has also recalled Sumar's position in favor of the right to self-determination of the Sahara.
Within the parliamentary group, the Compromís deputy integrated into Sumar in Congress, Alberto Ibáñez, has criticized Sánchez for being "not credible at all" by exempting Morocco from responsibility for what happened in Ceuta and has urged him to overcome his "Stockholm syndrome" with the Moroccan king, Mohamed VI.
In the same vein, the co-general coordinator of Movimiento Sumar and spokesperson in Congress, Verónica Martínez Barbero, has reproached the head of the Executive for not having criticized Morocco after the migratory crisis in the autonomous city and has detected a "lack of empathy" towards the Ceuta population and towards the migrants themselves.
Within the minority partner of the Government, it is considered that the socialist wing avoids confrontation with Rabat due to the key role it plays in controlling the border with Ceuta and Melilla.
Discrepancies with the asylum and immigration reform
Urtasun has also advanced that Sumar does not share the reform projects of the immigration and asylum law approved by the Council of Ministers in the first round, understanding that in some points they go even beyond the European migration and asylum pact, which their political space rejects.
For this reason, he has defended the need to protect "with nails and teeth" the Spanish legal framework that guarantees the right of asylum to those who need it, and has announced that they will initiate a dialogue with the Ministry of the Interior to introduce changes to the texts before their final approval in the second round.
During the press conference, the Minister of Culture has stated that the massive entry in Ceuta has clearly been an "attempt at destabilization" of the progressive Government and that there is a political motivation behind it, in light of the "reaction" of "the entire reactionary international, from the Government of Israel to the President of the United States, Donald Trump."
He has also reiterated that what happened in Ceuta evidences the "failure" of the border externalization policy applied by the European Union.