The Spanish government urgently removed a map from its new public housing portal. The document showed Ceuta and Melilla with dotted borders, used for disputed territories, while Western Sahara appeared integrated into Morocco.
New calls are circulating in Morocco for a mobilization on September 20 around Ceuta and Melilla. The National Police, Guardia Civil, CNI and Spanish military intelligence are monitoring the campaign, although a march toward the border has not yet been confirmed.
Madrid is hardening its discourse toward Rabat once again. Spain’s Foreign Ministry now believes that the repeated claims by Moroccan ministers regarding Sebta and Melilla “degrade” bilateral relations and insists that Spanish sovereignty will never be discussed with Morocco.
Spanish economist Santiago Niño Becerra believes that Spain’s departure from Ceuta and Melilla is no longer a question of possibility, but of timing. According to him, the new geopolitical balance now favors Morocco.
As Ceuta and Melilla once again become the focus of tensions between Rabat and Madrid, an old Moroccan Official Bulletin states the Kingdom’s position without beating around the bush: Moroccan territories, Spanish occupation and the desire to recover them.
The highest-ranking operational official in the Spanish armed forces visited Melilla, then Ceuta. Officially there to thank the military personnel, Teodoro López Calderón appeared in both cities amid a period of tensions between Madrid and Rabat.
Ceuta and Melilla will remain Spanish “until the end of time,” Pedro Sánchez promises. On the same day, Nizar Baraka asserts that Morocco will not retreat “a single centimeter.” The two partners are now publicly displaying completely opposing territorial positions.
Pedro Sánchez told Parliament that he had summoned Morocco’s ambassador to protest statements about Ceuta and Melilla. Spain’s Foreign Ministry later acknowledged that Karima Benyaich was absent and that another diplomat had attended the meeting.
Pedro Sánchez now acknowledges that Moroccan forces allowed migrants to enter Ceuta for ten hours on 30 July. However, the Spanish prime minister still refuses to accuse Rabat of organizing the mass arrival of more than 70,000 people.
Spain has just modified the exceptional measures put in place in Ceuta following the mass crossings from Morocco. A new decree maintains the possibility of mobilizing the army’s surveillance, transport and communications resources, but changes several facilities that may be used.
Morocco is reportedly rapidly strengthening its air defenses in the north of the country. Radars, artillery and anti-aircraft systems are said to be deployed to form a “bubble” whose coverage could, according to a Spanish military source, reach southern Spain.
A former head of Spanish military intelligence claims that his country could neutralize Morocco within 24 hours if Rabat attacked Ceuta. Aircraft, ships, ports, airports and communications would be targeted in a retaliation that would go far beyond defending the enclave.