Spain

Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez could have waited until August next year before facing the voters. Instead, he has called a snap election for November 29. In Sánchez's announcement, he declared that Spain had become a global benchmark for peace, feminism and prosperity, claiming the best economic and social results achieved by any democratic government in Spain. Recognizing that his “progressive” coalition government has also made mistakes, Sánchez, who has been prime minister for eight years, explained that in order to do more he needs to “renew and broaden the support of the people.” The immediate trigger was Friday’s defeat of his emergency housing legislation.

Messages circulating in Morocco are calling for another mass crossing into Ceuta, Spain’s North African exclave, on Wednesday. Spain has activated preventive measures and Morocco has reinforced the frontier with security personnel, water cannon, military vehicles and extra road controls. Perhaps nothing will happen. A similar online call for Sunday came to nothing. And Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares says the latest messages have not acquired the momentum on social media that preceded the extraordinary events of July 30 and 31. Forewarned may prove to be forearmed.

How many of the migrants who crossed from Morocco to Ceuta at the end of July remain in the city? Madrid has suggested that “only” about 5,000 remain in its North African exclave (population 83,000). But in that case why has Spain’s socialist government promised to create reception places for 6,000? The Ceuta government, meanwhile, puts the figure at about 13,000. Other local estimates run as high as 15,000. The argument over what Madrid knew about Ceuta beforehand is becoming increasingly embarrassing Hundreds of migrants unable to find places in official accommodation have been sleeping rough. One resident told El País: “Do you know what it is like to live with hundreds of blokes outside your front door shitting and pissing on the corners?

Ceuta, population 83,000, suffered what is being described as its worst night of vandalism last night since some 70,000 migrants poured across the Moroccan border at the end of July. Vehicles and rubbish containers were set alight in several districts, fires were started among belongings in migrant encampments and police intervened in several fights between migrants. Madrid puts the number remaining in its North African exclave at around 5,000. But current estimates in Ceuta suggest it is almost double. Night after night, Spanish television shows disturbing scenes from Ceuta Nearly 13,000 pupils are due to return to school today under an extraordinary security operation.

Spain’s socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has accused social media networks linked to Israel and Russia of spreading misinformation that helped fuel the crisis culminating in the sudden mass arrival of approximately 80,000 mostly Moroccan and sub-Saharan African migrants in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta (population 83,000) on 30 and 31 July. Madrid says some 5,000 remain in the city on the North African coast, although other estimates put the number considerably higher. Like other EU leaders, Sánchez has consistently opposed Russia’s war in Ukraine. But he has gone much further than most in his criticism of Israel, repeatedly describing its actions in Gaza as “genocide.

On July 30 and 31 around 80,000 migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco, according to the Spanish government’s latest estimate. Roughly 90 percent have since gone back. But, according to the government’s estimate, somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 remain in the Spanish city whose normal population is 83,000. Ceuta’s authorities believe the figure may be as high as 11,000. At least 83 bodies connected with the crossing have been recovered on the Spanish side of the border. Morocco officially acknowledges another 14 deaths but humanitarian organizations have estimated that in total more than 140 people have died since the border was breached.

With Spain still reeling from the extraordinary scenes in Ceuta, the country's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has decamped to La Mareta, the government’s palatial retreat on Lanzarote. Before beginning his holiday, he made a brief visit to the exclave, where, according to Madrid, some 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco and the local authorities say 88 bodies were recovered. Nearly a week later, Ceuta’s government says 3,000 to 5,000 migrants remain; Madrid puts the figure at 2,500. Around 400 are still living on El Trampolín beach, sheltering under blankets and makeshift structures. Food and water are now being distributed, but provision has been patchy: some say they went up to five days without food. Sanitation remains rudimentary.

Spain was invaded yesterday. There is no other way to put it. Close to 50,000 foreigners, mostly men, swarmed into Spanish territory and laughed and jeered as they went. Every generation before ours would have called that an invasion, and we should too. The era of euphemism is over. The left’s house of lies has fallen. We can all now see with our own eyes that our nations are being overwhelmed by cocky, often hostile men from afar. It isn’t only Spain’s sovereign integrity that lies in tatters following the storming of Ceuta – so does the tyranny of euphemism we’ve all been forced to labor under these past few years The footage from Ceuta is extraordinary – throngs of foreigners, mostly men from Morocco, gatecrashed an enclave of the Spanish kingdom.

From my home in Ávila I usually have a splendid view of the ancient town’s medieval walls. But yesterday morning the wind changed direction and they were largely obscured by a pall of wildfire smoke. The town hall issued health advice and recommended closing windows. But I’m among the fortunate. Everyone in Burgohondo, 25 miles south of Ávila, has been evacuated. It is the village my wife’s family comes from, and where the fire started. Across the region, tens of thousands have already been forced to leave their homes. And the forecast is ominous. Last year I suggested that Spain’s summer fires are made so frequent and destructive by long, hot, dry summers and by rural depopulation, with the resulting abandonment of farming and grazing.

Key parts of the post-Brexit treaty that provides for a fluid border between Gibraltar and Spain will come into provisional effect today. Running to over a thousand pages, the treaty took far longer to negotiate than the entire Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. It has still to be ratified by the House of Commons and the EU parliament. The treaty effectively makes Gibraltar part of the EU’s passport-free Schengen area. Both Spain and Gibraltar were anxious to avoid long waits at the border: the 15,000 Spaniards who cross every day are half of Gibraltar’s work force and they are also an estimated 25 percent of the wage earners in the adjacent region – one of the poorest parts of Spain.