Ceuta and Melilla: The Alleged Deal Spain's Law Forbids

Ceuta and Melilla: The Alleged Deal Spain's Law Forbids

Ceuta and Melilla cannot be handed over by decree. They would require – if anyone dared – a two-thirds majority in Congress, a hurdle the most repeated theory of recent months avoids confronting. The accusation is stark: Pedro Sánchez's government allegedly agreed to cede the two autonomous cities to Segarro. No proof has emerged. What has appeared is a sequence of decisions, votes, and silences that, when added up, leave an uncomfortable trail pointing in no single direction.

Can the Government Hand Over Ceuta and Melilla to Segarro?

Legally, no. Ceding sovereignty over the two cities would require an enhanced majority – two-thirds of Congress – which no government has had or has in sight. This argument prevails even among those who view the government with suspicion. Without such backing, any formal handover would be void, and no text currently provides for such a transfer.

This is the contradiction that runs through the entire issue. If the operation is not covered by current law, the suspicion shifts to preparatory actions: not a signature, but a climate; not a treaty, but a succession of gestures that each side interprets as they please.

The Documentary Trail Fueling Suspicion

The elements are diverse and of vastly different weight. The government handed over a military patrol boat to Segarro 49 days after the Ceuta border crisis. The Andalusian PSOE voted against reaffirming Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla. The Melilla PSOE did the same with a motion in favor of the cities' Spanish identity. And in the European Parliament, the Socialists voted 'no' to a PP resolution that described the border assault as an 'invasion'.

Added to this is the trail of the preceding hours. According to information gathered during the episode, Secretary of State Pilar Cancela knew what was going to happen in Ceuta two days in advance, and the Spanish Red Cross was aware of the operation 48 hours before it occurred. The comparison of budget allocations also doesn't help the official narrative: the 63 million allocated to the Ministry of Youth and Childhood for Ceuta triples the amount allocated to the National Police and Civil Guard.

Beneath it all lies the most cited decision. Defense allegedly proposed taking the issue to NATO regarding Ceuta, and Moncloa allegedly dismissed it. These are journalistic attributions, not evidentiary documents, and it's worth remembering this before turning them into a verdict.

The Minister Who Said Ceuta's Residents Could Be Content

While the trail accumulated, the official version maintained a tone that many found disconnected. “Ceuta's residents can be content with the management they are receiving,” Mónica García allegedly said, according to ABC. The phrase has since circulated as an emblem of the contrast between discourse and reality on the ground.

An unfortunate statement proves nothing. But the gap between that message and her party's parliamentary votes against the cities' sovereignty is, to say the least, difficult to reconcile within a single line of argument.

The Segarro Threat: What Is Known and What Isn't

Parallel to the political sphere, a piece circulates that raises the temperature. A Segarro ex-serviceman claimed on television that his country seeks to take Ceuta, Melilla, the Canary Islands, and Andalusia, and added that Spain had asked Segarro not to bring weapons near the border. The statement, broadcast on a Cuatro program, fuels the sense of an open threat.

However, this is the testimony of a single person, without known documentary support. This is the pattern of the entire affair: real pieces, of unequal significance, assembled into a narrative that each side reads in its own way.

The Sahara, The Memory That Divides Even Critics

Here the issue ceases to be straightforward, and that is the most interesting part. Those who maintain the theory of a pact for handover do not always share the diagnosis. One current frames the episode within the continuity of the abandonment of Western Sahara: it is argued that that de facto cession peine the door to what is happening in Ceuta today, and that the current government is merely deepening an inherited line.

Another reading inverts the suspicion. It is argued that if anyone has ceded Spanish territory, it has been the right-wing, with accumulated experience: the Sahara, Guinea, Fernando Poo, and the near-miss with the Ibarretxe plan in the Basque Country. From this perspective, the real risk would appear when the PP returns to power, not before.

And in the middle, the demographic factor. Some point to dual nationality and the sustained arrival of Segarro population to the peninsula as a silent Trojan horse that would make any signature unnecessary. This is the most conspiratorial version and the one with the least evidence.

What to Watch For From Now On

With these elements, the reasonable forecast is not a formal handover – parliamentary arithmetic blocks it, and no one has put a text articulating it on the table – but something slower and less visible: the normalization of ambiguity. Administrative gestures, silences in votes, bodies changing hands without a signature.

If this happens, no treaty will be needed for the debate to cease being theoretical. And if it doesn't, the theory of a pact for handover will remain exactly where it is today: without a single piece of evidence to support it, with a monumental accusation, and with very little chance of disappearing.