Rufián demands Sánchez apologize for Ceuta and accuses him of "lying to the face" of the citizenry

Gabriel Rufián has attacked Pedro Sánchez this Tuesday for the explanations offered regarding the Ceuta crisis. The ERC spokesperson in Congress believes that the President of the Government has "lied to the face" of the citizens about what happened at the border and should apologize to the people of Ceuta for his management.

The accusation came after the Board of Spokespersons, when Rufián was asked about the possible existence of blackmail from Morocco through information obtained with the Pegasus espionage program. The republican deputy rejected that theory, which he described as "conspiratorial", but maintains that Moncloa is hiding part of the truth.

"One thing is diplomacy, responsibility, and a sense of state, and another thing is to lie to your citizens' faces," he warned. His words open a new rift between the Government and one of its main parliamentary allies amid discussions about the role played by Rabat during the entry of more than 70,000 people on July 30 and 31.

Rufián has put forward two possible explanations to understand why, in his opinion, the Executive "lies in this way". The first would be that Morocco had compromising information about members of the Government and used it to condition their decisions. The ERC spokesperson has ruled out that possibility due to lack of evidence.

The second hypothesis points directly to the actions of the Alawi regime. Rufián believes that Morocco may have launched "a war that the Spanish Government cannot win" and used its own population as an instrument of pressure on the border.

According to his description, Rabat would have sent thousands of people as "cannon fodder" while Spain tried to contain an arrival impossible to manage in a matter of hours. This interpretation deviates from the narrative defended by Sánchez, who has assured that so far there are not enough elements to hold the Moroccan Government responsible for an organized operation.

Rufián demands apologies to the people of Ceuta

The ERC leader has asked the Executive to acknowledge the seriousness of what happened and apologize to the population of Ceuta. He believes that the Government remained "twenty-something days disappeared" before fully assuming the political direction of a crisis that had overwhelmed the resources of the autonomous city.

"It's a problem to have 80,000 people wandering from one day to the next in your city, wherever they may be from," he stated. Rufián has defended that admitting this reality is compatible with preserving migrants' rights and avoiding xenophobic discourses that have grown around the crisis.

The republican spokesperson has also reacted to the deadline set by Sánchez to stabilize Ceuta before the end of the year. He has acknowledged that "there are no magic recipes either" and has avoided speculating how long authorities will need to complete identifications, resolve cases, and return those who do not have the right to remain in Spain.

His reproach is mainly directed at the lack of explanations and the Government's initial actions. ERC considers that diplomatic prudence with Morocco may be understandable, but rejects that this strategy leads to downplaying what happened or denying the abandonment that, according to Rufián, the people of Ceuta felt during the first weeks.

Sánchez asked for "patience" this Monday and set the end of the year as the horizon for recovering normality. The president defended that the Executive acted with humanitarian criteria by welcoming, identifying, and processing the situation of those who crossed the border. He also highlighted Morocco's subsequent cooperation in facilitating thousands of returns.

The head of the Executive has described the blackmail theory with Pegasus as a "hoax for a Netflix series". The phones of Sánchez and several ministers were infected with the espionage program in 2021, although the authorship of the attacks or the full content of the stolen information has never been publicly established.

PP, the far-right Vox, and some parliamentary partners like PNV and Podemos have raised doubts about the possibility that Rabat might use this data to condition Spain's position. Rufián distances himself from that suspicion but agrees with them in demanding more clarity about prior warnings and the actions of the Moroccan authorities.

The controversy has increased after communications from the National Intelligence Center became known, warning of organized movements on social media before the massive crossing. The Government maintains that those messages did not allow for knowing the magnitude of the entry that was going to occur and distinguishes between a preventive communication and a formal security alert.

The Audiencia Nacional keeps an investigation open into the events under the direction of Judge María Tardón. The Executive has approved the declassification of 40 documents prepared between July 1 and August 1 and is preparing to appear in the procedure as an injured party.