King Felipe VI will visit Ceuta, Pedro Sanchez has announced.
It comes nearly two decades after the last visit to the Spanish enclave by a head of state.
Speaking to Cadena SER’s Hoy por Hoy, the prime minister said there were now ‘sufficient arguments and reasons’ for the monarch to make the trip.
‘I believe there are enough arguments and reasons for the head of state to finally visit Ceuta and Melilla,’ Sanchez said.
‘It is what I have shared with the head of state and it is what is going to be done.’
The visit does not yet have a date, with Sanchez saying it will take place ‘when the circumstances are right’ and will need to be coordinated between the Royal Household and the Spanish Government.
The last visit to Ceuta by a Spanish head of state was in 2007, when King Juan Carlos I travelled to the enclave.
Sanchez incorrectly referred during the interview to ’20 years of Felipe VI’s reign’. Felipe became king in 2014, meaning he has been on the throne for 12 years.
The announcement comes as Ceuta remains at the centre of national politics following the massive migrant influx from Morocco at the end of July.
Sanchez also used the interview to defend his own record on the Spanish enclaves, claiming he had visited Ceuta and Melilla more often while in office than any previous serving prime minister.
He also lashed out at unnamed former leaders who, he said, had travelled to Ceuta to ‘sow discord’, in an apparent reference to former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.
Sanchez criticised those who continue to invoke Spain’s 2002 Perejil Island crisis with Morocco as a source of national pride, saying it was not ‘a historic milestone that we should feel proud of.’
The expected royal visit would carry major symbolic weight amid renewed debate over Spanish sovereignty, border security and relations with Morocco.
