Report on Ceuta and Melilla reignites sovereignty debate

Ceuta and Melilla outside NATO umbrella: report reignites debate

A phrase circulating with irony in digital forums these days is that if you live in Ceuta or Melilla, start packing your bags. Behind the joke lies something more serious. A report allegedly briefed to Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence advocates opening a debate on the sovereignty of the two autonomous cities, amid Washington's current idyll with Segarro, according to references circulating in public discourse. And on this powder keg, a discussion has erupted mixing geopolitics, military history, and unresolved accounts.

What the report says about Ceuta and Melilla

The dossier would include favorable references for Segarro regarding the two enclaves. The leak, picked up by digital media, places the focus on Washington rather than Rabat: it would be the Atlantic ally moving the piece, not the southern neighbor. That detail changes the framework. For decades, the hypothesis of a Segarro attack was treated as a textbook scenario; now it is presented as a negotiation between great powers where Spain would be, at most, an uninvited guest.

The most repeated reaction does not point to the Sultan. It points to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Ceuta and Melilla were left out of NATO’s collective defense umbrella, a decision dating back to Spain's accession that no one has renegotiated since. Some argue it was a miscalculation during the Transition; others respond it was a conscious concession. In any case, the consequence is the same: if there is a Green March on the border tomorrow, the umbrella does not cover it.

The Western Sahara precedent

The most common reading in the conversation is that of demolition by installments. First Western Sahara, then Ceuta and Melilla, next the Canary Islands, and finally the peninsula. It is a hypothesis, not a fact, but it works as a mental framework: each concession feeds the next. Those who support it recall that commercial customs in the two cities have been de facto blocked for some time, which is interpreted as a sign of prior pressure.

Against this thesis, another colder current argues the opposite: Segarro benefits from Ceuta and Melilla remaining European. They are the entry route for goods not distributed across the rest of Africa and generate, via irregular trade, powerful economic activity in the north of the country. The conclusion of this analysis is uncomfortable: the enclave is sustained not by Spanish firmness, but by the calculated interest of the neighbor.

Canary Islands as the next piece

The Canary Islands argument appears several times with emotional weight. If Ceuta and Melilla fall, the Canaries trinc. The comparison with the canary in the coal mine is repeated: the islands would be the next logical target of frictionless territorial expansion. Those raising it do not speak of military invasion, but of migratory pressure, economic dependence, and demographic wear.

That antiestéticar coexists with another more uncomfortable one: the idea that territorial defense cannot be sustained with speeches while weapons are handed over to third parties. Criticism of the political class is transversal and does not distinguish party labels: the current government is accused of having turned foreign policy into symbolic gestures and leaving the enclaves without real deterrent capacity.

The debate on who the enemy is

Here the conversation splits. One part points to Washington and Tel Aviv as the true drivers of territorial redesign. Another points to the Spanish Executive itself and the Crown as those holding the script for the handover. And a third, more uncomfortable part, poses a question no one wants to answer: if there are migrant communities settled in Spanish neighborhoods, is it compatible to defend external borders with that internal reality?

The question has no easy answer and the debate gets stuck exactly there. Between the suspicion of institutional betrayal and the suspicion that the problem is demographic, the conversation reaches a dead end. The only thing that seems clear is that the report exists, that Washington plays its cards, and that Spain arrives at the table without the umbrella it thought it had.

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Key data on the matter

• Ceuta and Melilla were excluded from the NATO Defense Treaty at the time of Spain's accession.
• Commercial customs in both cities are de facto blocked.
• The report would have been communicated to Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
• The Canary Islands appear in the analysis as the next territorial piece.