Spain’s Royal Household has announced that King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will visit Ceuta on October 13 and Melilla the following day, the first trip by the monarch to either city in 12 years on the throne. The dates were agreed with the Spanish Government and the programme is due to be published in the coming days.
The visit comes two and a half months after the invasion of Ceuta on July 30 and 31, when tens of thousands of people crossed the European Union’s only land border with Africa. A European Parliament resolution adopted in September put the number at about 80,000 and held Morocco responsible, describing the operation as hybrid warfare against a member state.
Spain’s Interior Ministry has given a lower figure of some 72,000. The Royal Household said the trip had been in preparation before the July crossings.
Under the Spanish Constitution the King’s official engagements require the endorsement of the government, so the decision had rested with successive administrations in Madrid. Neither Mariano Rajoy nor Pedro Sánchez had judged the moment right.
Sánchez used the monarch’s absence on August 31 to deflect criticism of his own handling of the crisis, asking on radio how often the head of state had been to the two cities. Days later he told Congress that a royal visit would express the absolute commitment of the State to Ceuta and Melilla.
Felipe VI had told Ceuta’s President Juan Jesús Vivas of his wish to travel there at a meeting at the Marivent Palace in Palma on August 6. He has since been briefed by Defence Minister Margarita Robles and senior commanders on the position in the city.
At a state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron on September 29, the King called the mass entry unacceptable, saying the breach of a Spanish border that is also a European one posed a major challenge to security and public order.
The last visit by a Spanish monarch was in November 2007, when Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía travelled to both cities and Morocco recalled its ambassador from Madrid in protest. Before that, Alfonso XIII went in 1927.
Rabat claims sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, neither of which has ever been under the control of the modern Moroccan State. The September resolution called those claims unacceptable and singled out the mass regularisation of illegal immigrants pursued by Sánchez, saying it acted as a pull factor.
Sánchez visited Ceuta on July 31 with Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and was jeered by residents as he left. It is not yet known whether the King and Queen will meet the public during their stay.
