MADRID, 1 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of Morocco has defended this Thursday that the letter sent to Brussels in which it affirmed that Ceuta and Melilla are Moroccan cities was a “necessary” response to the “skid” of the vice president of the Executive responsible for Migration, Margaritis Schinas, who had appealed instead to the Spanishness of the two autonomous cities.
One day after the complaint formalized by the Spanish Government, the spokesman for the Moroccan Executive, Mustafa Baitas, justified the letter at a press conference, although he qualified that Rabat “is proud” of “trust” and “coordination”. that now exists in relations with Spain in this “new stage”. A stage, he added, which is based on “trust, coordination and mutual respect”.
In a letter to Brussels, advanced on Sunday by the newspaper ‘El País’, Rabat collected a dozen “hostile statements” by Schinas about Morocco and “the Moroccan cities of Ceuta and Melilla”, a language that the Government of Pedro Sánchez rejected “categorically” in a note verbale. According to diplomatic sources, Rabat has been made “very clear” that “the Spanish borders, including Ceuta and Melilla, are internationally recognized.”
The European Commission has also shown this Thursday its support for Schinas’s statements. The EU Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Nabila Massrali, has defended in statements to Europa Press the importance of protecting external borders as part of a global approach: “This is the meaning of the statements by Vice President Schinas regarding Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla”.
Spain already sent a verbal note to the UN Human Rights Council in October in which it stressed the Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla after the Government of Morocco had questioned this point in a letter sent to this same body . “The sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla is indisputable,” stressed the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ángeles Moreno.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, indicated after the High Level Meeting (RAN) on February 2 that Spain and Morocco promised to avoid anything that could offend the “spheres of sovereignty” of the other.
