Pedro Sánchez has parked the trip to Andorra with which he planned to close his August vacation. The president remains in Madrid after a week in which the Ceuta crisis has gained political weight and has ended up altering his plans: this Friday he will preside over a new follow-up meeting by videoconference and on September 3 he will have to appear before Congress, six days before the date that the Government had initially proposed.
The trip to the Principality was prepared. The rooms in the Soldeu hotel had been reserved for about fifteen days, according to ABC, which revealed Sánchez's plans to return to Andorra with Begoña Gómez after spending a good part of the month in Lanzarote. The same newspaper later reported that the trip had been suspended.
The decision comes as the Government tries to channel a crisis that is no longer limited to the management of mass entries. The different explanations about the information that the CNI had before July 30 has opened a new front within the Executive, while the response on the ground has forced the coordination to be reinforced and to activate instruments that had not been used until now.
A trip organized in advance
ABC places the suspension of the trip after the president's plans were leaked and claims that the leak caused discomfort in his environment. According to the newspaper, during Wednesday an alternative was even considered: to delay the departure until Friday and make the journey by road. Finally, that option would not have been maintained either.
The preparations had begun before the displacement was known. A private trip of the president requires prior organization of accommodation, transfers, and the protection device that accompanies him, so different people necessarily intervene in its planning.
The published information has allowed knowing the destination and the existence of those preparations. There is no record that sensitive operational details of Sánchez's security have been leaked, such as specific itineraries, schedules, vehicles, or distribution of escorts.
Andorra was not a new destination either. Sánchez and Begoña Gómez were already there at the end of August 2024, when the president attended the Mountain Bike World Championships and took advantage of the stay to practice cycling.
This time, however, Ceuta has intervened in the calendar.
From Lanzarote to a new meeting on Ceuta
Sánchez has spent most of August in Lanzarote. From there he met by videoconference with the ministers involved in the crisis on August 7 and 17, as reported by La Moncloa.
The president returned this week to Madrid coinciding with a change in the government's response. The Government declared the situation of interest for National Security in Ceuta and appointed Ángel Víctor Torres as the functional authority to coordinate the actions of the different administrations.
The next meeting will be this Friday. Torres announced that Sánchez will preside by videoconference an extraordinary meeting to monitor the crisis, according to Europa Press. Moncloa has not communicated from where the president will participate.
The meeting comes after the Government has had to face in recent days an issue that until now had remained in the background: what information the State services had before the massive entries began.
Robles and Marlaska focus on two different pieces of information
Margarita Robles defended this week in Congress the actions of the National Intelligence Center. According to the Minister of Defense, the CNI agents stationed in Ceuta communicated on July 29 the existence of a call to try to access the city by swimming the next day, coinciding with the Throne Day of Morocco. Robles also stated that the Center shared the available information with the Security Forces and the Government Delegation, as reported by EFE.
Fernando Grande-Marlaska has set the limit at another point. The Minister of the Interior maintains that no intelligence service anticipated an entry of the dimensions that ultimately occurred and assured that "there was no report" that allowed predicting what happened on July 30.
The Government Delegation in Ceuta has denied, for its part, having received a report warning of what was going to happen, although it has acknowledged that it handled information about the increase in entries by sea.
The explanations draw a difference that will need to be clarified: one thing is to know the existence of a call to try to enter swimming and another to have foreseen the dimension that the crisis would end up reaching. The pending issue is to determine what information circulated between the CNI, the Security Forces, and the Government Delegation before July 30 and what assessment they made of it.
Sánchez will have to respond on September 3
Meanwhile, the president will have to address that controversy sooner than the Executive had planned.
The Government had requested that Sánchez appear before Congress on September 9, coinciding with the first ordinary plenary of the new session. But the parliamentary groups demanded to bring forward the explanations and the date was finally set yesterday for September 3, according to Europa Press.
The appearance will force the president to explain the actions of the Executive since the massive entries at the end of July, the measures adopted during August, and the decisions made this week. The debate on the prior information from the CNI is now incorporated into that balance.
Sánchez will arrive at Congress after presiding over the meeting on Friday and with barely a few days between both appointments.
Ceuta settles at the beginning of the political course
The crisis coincides with a complicated parliamentary return for the Government. The investiture majority remains fragmented and Sánchez needs to maintain the support of his partners to push forward the main initiatives of the legislature.
At the same time, within the PSOE references to a future succession have begun to appear, although there is no open succession race nor has Sánchez announced his intention to leave the General Secretariat.
Óscar Puente has been one of the first leaders of the Government to speak openly about that possibility. In an interview with Europa Press, the Minister of Transport defended Sánchez's continuity and placed any succession within four or five years, but admitted that he could consider competing for the General Secretariat when that moment arrives.
"If it came to me, with two seconds left and I had to play it, I am not one of those who pass it," Puente replied. In the same interview, he described Sánchez as the "Michael Jordan" of the PSOE and defended that he is still the best leader to head the party.
His words do not formally open a succession, but introduce for the first time his name in that scenario while the president faces September with the crisis of Ceuta as one of his first major parliamentary issues.
Andorra is on hold
For now, Moncloa has not communicated what Sánchez will do after the meeting on Friday. There is also no confirmation that he will recover the trip to Andorra before the end of August.
His next known political commitment is set for September 3 in Congress. There he will have to explain a crisis that began at the end of July with the massive entries in Ceuta and that, a month later, has also ended up affecting the coordination between ministries and information services.