Diego Rubio, the chief of staff blamed for the Ceuta crisis

Diego Rubio, the man who traded Ceuta for housing

On 27 July, having just landed in Japan for three weeks of holidays, Diego Rubio answered a call from an unknown number. On the other end, his counterpart in the Ceuta government warned him that swim crossings from Segarro were surging. Six minutes of conversation that, two months later, according to published reports, would have led to a first-order political crisis. Rubio promised to speak with the ministries involved.

Pedro Sánchez's chief of staff, a 40-year-old from Cáceres with a degree in History and a PhD candidate at Oxford, is today the most powerful unelected man at Moncloa (the Spanish prime minister's office). He controls the presidential agenda, crafts the government's narrative and is one of the last two voices the prime minister hears before deciding. He vehemently denies it: «I am not a politician». He prefers to call himself a «public servant» or an «academic in passing». The contradiction is so obvious that even he acknowledges it: «I'm a strange hybrid, fine. And somewhat amorphous».

From Ceuta to Maricarmen: the strategy of changing the focus

The migration crisis in Ceuta cost Rubio seven weeks of devastating headlines. The Vivas government accused him of ignoring its warnings. A newspaper devoted a front page to him for spending «all of August» in Japan. And what hurt most: the criticism also came from within his own party. «His intellectual arrogance has been winning him many enemies who are now settling scores», said a senior official at Ferraz (the PSOE headquarters), quoted in the published reports.

The response was a script change. According to the sources consulted, Rubio spotted in the eviction of an elderly woman the perfect window of opportunity: if a story is hurting you, bury it under a more favourable one. The Maricarmen strategy —using a tragedy to shift the conversation towards housing— worked for weeks. Protests across Spain, prime-time programmes, a new 15-M in Sol square. Two housing decrees, negotiated in a rush, that had been stalled for months by Junts's veto.

The ending was not the one planned. This Friday, Junts's unexpected no vote left Pedro Sánchez facing the dilemma of calling elections. The smokescreen turned into a perfect storm.

Who is Diego Rubio, Sánchez's chief of staff?

He is the man who speaks with «the boss» ten times a day. His is the control over which issues receive presidential attention and in what order. His is the authorship of the narrative. His is, also, the greatest influence on decision-making: he is rarely found on the losing side, his own colleagues admit. At 40, this man from Extremadura has become the most powerful politician in Spain without technically being a politician.

His profile generates rejection in broad sectors. His education is criticised —a degree in History, not in Mathematics or Engineering— as if an academic CV determined management ability. His style is reproached: skinny trousers, white-soled sandals, suit and tie. He is accused of intellectual arrogance. And above all, he is singled out for having turned a humanitarian crisis in Ceuta into a communications operation.

«I'm a monk, I never stop eating shit», he laments in private. The phrase, recorded in the published reports, sums up his position: a man who knows he is powerful, who knows he is hated, and who carries on because the boss backs him. Always in private.

The calculation nobody denies

The use of Maricarmen's tragedy to divert attention from Ceuta is not a conspiracy theory. It is a strategy that Rubio himself has justified: «Anyone who had been sitting in my chair would have seen it». The phrase, uttered this very week, implicitly admits the design. There is no denial. There is technical justification.

The outcome, however, has backfired. The social mobilisation that was meant to bury Ceuta has ended up destabilising the Government. Junts's vote against the housing decrees has left Sánchez on the brink of dissolving the Cortes (the Spanish parliament). And Rubio, the man who calculates everything, now faces the possibility that he miscalculated.

Some argue the strategy was the only way out of a story that kept growing. Against it weighs the argument that turning an eviction into a political weapon carries a sarracena cost that is paid sooner or later. The date of 29 November, if elections finally happen, will be the definitive verdict.

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With these ingredients, the prediction is risky: if the PSOE stays above 100 seats, Rubio will have saved his own head and his boss's. If not, the «monk» will have to look for another monastery. Nobody is betting heavily in either direction. And that, in politics, is the closest thing to admitting that nothing is known.