Pressure is building in Madrid. Spain’s conservative Popular Party and the far-right Vox have seized on recent unrest in occupied Ceuta to push Pedro Sánchez’s government into confrontation with Rabat, demanding a royal visit to the city, calling for military deployment against irregular migration, and at one point suggesting Moroccan security services were behind the disturbances.
Spanish officials, from the prime minister’s office to the foreign and justice ministries, have repeatedly denied any Moroccan involvement. Sánchez himself has rejected calls to send in the army, arguing that a military response is no answer to a migration crisis rooted in economic desperation on the other side of the strait.
Behind the public statements, though, a quieter diplomatic exchange has been unfolding. According to diplomatic sources, Madrid summoned Morocco’s ambassador for clarification after several Moroccan officials made public remarks referencing Ceuta. Spain’s foreign minister later said he had raised the matter directly with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, who reportedly told him those comments did not reflect the Kingdom’s official position.
That exchange has stirred debate inside Morocco, where opposition figures argue it exposes an inconsistency: the government stays quiet in public while Madrid, not Rabat, ends up disclosing details of the diplomatic contacts. Morocco’s foreign ministry has declined to confirm or deny what was reportedly said to its Spanish counterpart.
That silence looks deliberate rather than accidental. By neither confirming nor denying the account attributed to Bourita, Rabat avoids letting any one statement be read as its formal position on Ceuta and Melilla. The approach also, indirectly, helps Sánchez absorb pressure from the Spanish right without a full-blown diplomatic rupture with a neighbor Madrid can ill afford to alienate.
The contrast between the two capitals’ postures reflects a deeper structural difference. In Morocco, foreign policy is set by the King, insulated from electoral cycles. In Spain, a mishandled diplomatic file can cost a government its majority. Analysts say that asymmetry is precisely why Rabat can afford patience on a dossier that keeps rattling Spanish politics every time tensions flare along the border fence.
