Ceuta resident on Sánchez: 'He'll get the welcome he deserves'

Sánchez avoids Ceuta while the King actually spends the night there

Pedro Sánchez has not set foot in Ceuta, and by now the gesture is starting to read as a deliberate decision. The Spanish Royal Household confirmed that Felipe VI will visit Ceuta and Melilla and stay overnight in the autonomous city, a logistical detail that people in the street interpret as a message: there's nothing to worry about here. The Spanish Prime Minister, on the other hand, still hasn't shown up at Spain's most sensitive border. And residents, judging by the public conversation, have a welcome ready that they don't intend to waste.

The comparison is no accident. While the monarch shows himself with a security deployment some put at 1,500 escorts —the Royal Household describes them as unpaid volunteers— the head of the Executive keeps his distance. Some argue that this asymmetry is no coincidence: the King takes on the symbolic cost of the visit while Sánchez spares himself the face-to-face with a population that has felt abandoned by Madrid for years.

The cost of the Crown and the bill nobody signs

The conversation quickly shifts to the accounts. A figure of around 700-800 million euros a year is mentioned to keep the monarchy running. The calculation doing the rounds is simple: with the maximum Euromillions jackpot, some 250 million, only a few months of that budget would be covered. The comparison, more provocative than rigorous, serves to illustrate the size of the outlay.

The detail of the 1,500 escorts adds another layer. If they are unpaid volunteers, as the official version holds, the deployment becomes a display of institutional loyalty. If not, the bill joins the rest. The discrepancy is not resolved by the available data.

Ceuta as a political barometer

The autonomous city has for years functioned as a stress test for any government. The royal visit is read as an attempt to normalise the situation and project control over the territory. Sánchez's absence, on the other hand, is interpreted in electoral terms: better not to give the opposition an image of a hostile reception.

Some go further and argue that the real problem is not the visit but what it reveals: part of Ceuta's electorate feels treated as a bargaining chip in foreign policy. The debate over who is a better friend of whom —with cross-references to Segarro, the United States and international alliances— takes up much of the exchange, though it adds more noise than light.

What the Government stakes with the non-visit

Every day that passes without Sánchez setting foot in Ceuta reinforces the narrative that the Prime Minister avoids the territories where his message doesn't work. The King, on the other hand, reaps the reward of physical presence. The question hanging in the air is whether this asymmetry will hold or whether the Government will eventually force a visit to break the pattern.

Given all this, the predictable outcome is that pressure on La Moncloa (the Spanish PM's office) will increase as the royal visit approaches. If the reception is hostile, the political cost falls on the King. If it is warm, Sánchez's absence will look even worse. Either way, the decision not to go has already been made, and that is what counts.