Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez convened an extraordinary meeting of the National Security Council in Madrid to address the ongoing migrant crisis in Ceuta.
The high-level advisory body gathered on Tuesday ahead of a cabinet meeting, exactly 26 days after an estimated 80,000 migrants entered the Spanish autonomous city illegally from neighboring Morocco.
The National Security Council serves as Spain's top executive advisory body during major national emergencies. Ceuta is a Spanish autonomous city located on the North African coast, sharing a border with Morocco and acting as an external frontier of the European Union.
Delayed response to the border influx
Former Spanish interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz strongly criticized the timing of the meeting, arguing that gathering officials nearly a month after the border breach demonstrated a fundamental failure of governance.
An estimated 80,000 migrants crossed into the enclave during the initial influx. Fernández Díaz noted that for Ceuta, a city of 84,000 Spanish residents, the influx was proportionally equivalent to more than three million foreigners entering Madrid illegally, with over 300,000 remaining after 26 days.
Madrid, the Spanish capital, has a population of over three million people. The scale of the movement into Ceuta created severe administrative and security pressure across the small North African territory.
Prime Minister's timeline and summer vacation
Prime Minister Sánchez publicly thanked Moroccan authorities on August 1 for their cooperation in working to restore normality at the border. Immediately following those remarks, Sánchez departed for his official summer vacation at La Mareta.
La Mareta is a royal estate located on the Canary Island of Lanzarote, traditionally used by Spanish heads of government for official retreats and holiday stays.
Fernández Díaz stated that the border breach represented a direct violation of Spain's territorial integrity. He argued that taking 26 days to assemble national security leaders to address a territorial breach exposed a grave failure by the progressive coalition administration.
Definition of government as an oxymoron
Describing the delayed meeting as an existential contradiction, Fernández Díaz cited the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary definition of an oxymoron. He explained that the term refers to a rhetorical figure combining two opposing words to generate a new meaning, offering examples such as deafening silence or frozen fire.
The Royal Spanish Academy, based in Madrid, is the official institution responsible for standardizing and regulating the Spanish language across the Spanish-speaking world.
Applying the linguistic term to politics, Fernández Díaz concluded that political Sanchism in office functions as an oxymoron. He asserted that a genuine government works for the common good and national interest of its citizens, whereas the current administration serves private interests opposed to Spain's historical and national identity.
