Felipe VI makes first visit in 20 years of a King of Spain to the city

O King Philip VI today makes the first visit in 20 years of a Spanish head of state to Ceuta, whose sovereignty is claimed by Morocco and where in July more than 70,000 people entered illegally.

Felipe VI, who was proclaimed King in 2014, will sleep in the city, so he will also be the first head of state of Spain to sleep in the Spanish enclave in North Africa since 1927.

According to the agenda announced by the Royal House, Felipe VI will meet in Ceuta with local authorities, representatives of civil society and leaders of the various religious communities of the city, who have been proud to be “the city of the four cultures” for centuries (Catholic, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish).

More than 40% of Ceuta's population are Catholic and more than 40% are Muslim.

Felipe VI and Letizia Ortiz will also participate in an ecumenical ceremony at the Muslim cemetery Sidi Embarek de Ceuta, where more than 80 people who died on 30 and 31 July are buried trying to enter the city swimming and whose bodies were rescued on the Spanish side of the border.

After the passage by Ceuta, Felipe VI and his wife, Letizia Ortiz, follow Melilla, the other enclave of Spain in North Africa and with borders with Morocco.

The last visit of a Spanish head of state to Ceuta and Melilla was in 2007 on the only trips to the enclaves that Juan Carlos I, the father of the current monarch.

The movements of a few hours each of the cities of Juan Carlos I then triggered a diplomatic crisis with Morocco, which temporarily removed the ambassador from Madrid.

This time, Felipe VI's visit has as a scenario the crisis triggered in Ceuta with the illegal entry, on 30 and 31 July, of more than 70,000 people in the city, in what the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, described in those days as an attack and a violation of Spain's territorial integrity.

What happened in Ceuta at the end of July and the crisis on the ground that triggered – with thousands of people remaining illegally in the city, an increase in tension between the population and migrants and reports of some episodes of violence – remain to this day at the heart of public and political debate in Spain, with the Government of Sánchez being the target of widespread criticism, from the left and the right.

The executive has been accused of a slow response to the situation on the ground, with thousands of people sleeping on the streets and beaches of Ceuta until a few days ago and subservience to Morocco.

Ceuta and immigration will be one of the themes that predictably dominate the campaign for the early parliamentary elections of November 29, meanwhile convened by Pedro Sánchez.

The visit to the two cities “was agreed by the Government and the Royal House,” according to the announcement of the Spanish Royal House of October 1.

Felipe VI will transmit “the absolute commitment of the State” with the two Spanish enclaves, Pedro Sánchez said, in an intervention in the national parliament in Madrid on September 3.

“ These cities have been Spanish for centuries and since that treaty [with Morocco of 1865] are Spanish by diplomatic agreement. And I assure you that, on the part of the Spanish Government, they will continue to be so until the end of time”, he said.

About what happened in Ceuta, Pedro Sánchez has said that there is no evidence of an action “designed or executed” by Morocco so far, but he recognized for the first time on September 3 that there are “doubts, indications and questions that are in the air” about the role and action of the authorities of Rabat.

It also acknowledged that “it is clear that after what happened”, cooperation with Morocco, a country that has a “key role in managing migration flows” to Spain, “must be different” and the “coordination and alert mechanisms” must be reviewed to “build additional guarantees”.

Days later, he revealed that the Spanish Government asked Morocco for “actions and explanations” for the lack of control of the Ceuta border on July 30.