Juanma Moreno has accused Pedro Sanchez of showing ‘arrogant indifference’ towards the ongoing crisis in Ceuta.
Speaking at a Partido Popular conference in Sevilla on Monday, the Andalucian president said the prime minister has failed to act while the city remains gripped by the aftermath of the mass migrant influx.
Moreno said Ceuta had been ‘invaded’ and claimed its residents had been ‘abandoned’ by the central government.
‘Ceuta has lost its city. Its people can no longer live normally because there has been an invasion of their public spaces and freedoms,’ Moreno said.
The PP leader also criticised Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska after he reportedly described ‘the concept of security as subjective.’
‘You have to be very cynical to make comments like that,’ Moreno said.
Moreno was joined at the event by members of the Casa de Ceuta in Sevilla, who posed for photographs holding a banner reading: ‘Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta must be defended.’
Addressing Ceuta’s residents directly, he said: ‘We are with you and we will continue to stand with you until the end.’
He added that ‘Spain’s territorial integrity begins in Ceuta and Melilla.’
Moreno said residents were living with increased violence and insecurity following the migrant crisis.
‘People are locking themselves inside their homes to protect themselves,’ he claimed.
‘This is happening in Spain, in a European Union country, and the prime minister has not moved an inch to free those citizens who are suffering.’
Moreno renews calls for government action
Moreno said the Ceuta crisis had become ‘the drop that has made the glass overflow’ for many Spaniards and argued it exposed what he described as a government paralysed by internal problems.
‘It is as if the state has dissolved into the Socialist Party’s own crises over corruption and its inability to govern,’ he said.
He also criticised Sanchez for failing to appear publicly during major national crises, including the Ceuta migrant emergency, railway accidents and drug trafficking violence in southern Spain.
‘Where is the prime minister to face the public, provide answers and offer solutions?’ Moreno asked.
Sanchez did visit Ceuta to meet with its leader on July 31.
PP says Ceuta will remain central issue
The speech comes as the PP continues to make Ceuta the centrepiece of its criticism of Sanchez’s government following the mass migrant arrivals at the end of July.
Moreno insisted Andalucia feels a special connection with both Ceuta and Melilla and said the region would continue campaigning until ‘Ceuta recovers its freedom.’
He also used the event to attack the government’s proposed Catalonia financing model, describing it as ‘a system designed exclusively for Catalan separatism.’
Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.
